Not Even the Rain
by vickrok
Summary: There was a storm coming in. It was exactly like him to do this, to make someone else suffer for his whims. **Completed before Season 5.**
1. Not Even the Rain Chapter 1

**Here's something new. It's probably the same old thing. What can I say? They painted us into a corner. ; )**

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Chapter 1

It was just past noon on a frigid post-Super Bowl Sunday.

She was in the produce section of the IGA thinking about meatball soup and fluffy socks and Netflix, and maybe a nap. There was no pressure and no emptiness, only local ground beef and trucked-in vegetables, and a can of tomato sauce, and her first full day off in two weeks.

Then her phone vibrated in her back pocket. And there she was.

She hadn't meant to be, not six months later and over halfway through yet another hostile Wyoming winter. Not with at least ten solid reasons to have fled the scene by late summer. But she was still there, and she was still planning on planning on getting out.

At the time she hadn't had the funds or the drive to move cross country, and she hadn't been willing to admit this latest failure to the only people who might have been able to help. She could have hidden this one in the folds of the other slightly less recent failure. No one would have suspected, but she didn't want them thinking the divorce had been her undoing either.

What she wanted was to not be undone. Since there was no getting around that, she wanted at least to finish putting herself back together and to conceal the scars. From there, she could move forward.

There was a second vibration.

She slid her phone out. It was the station. The rest was inevitable.

"Hey, Ruby," she said.

She wasn't on call, but Eamonn was off for a long weekend at his brother's wedding in Jackson, and Ferg was working overtime. It wasn't her problem, but that was a weak argument in a department like theirs.

"It's Ferg."

She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder and picked up a bag of celery.

"Hey, Ferg."

"Vic."

He sighed.

"What's up?" she said.

She faked a loud yawn.

"The Sheriff's caught up in Hardin," he said. "Engine trouble."

"What kind of engine trouble?"

She grabbed a bag of baby carrots and dropped it in her basket.

"Something with the block."

"Hmm," she said. "You need me to man the office while you go bail him out?"

She could have 'lost service' quite easily. It was a specialty of hers.

"My folks are expecting me for Sunday dinner."

"Hardin's what?" She picked up a yellow onion and examined it. "An hour and a half away? You'd be back in time."

"More like two, and that's without the weather that's coming in," he said. "Storm watch."

"Why'd he go up there now then?"

She put the onion back and chose another one.

He sighed again. He was bugging the living shit out of her.

"He left hours ago. He had plenty of time to get back."

"Did he drop off Stanich?"

"Not yet," he said.

"Crap."

"He's got his truck in a shop up there, but they're telling him it'll be a couple of days."

She almost said, _That would be awesome_ , but she was committed to not inflicting her distaste for Walt on the rest of them. They all seemed to feel sorry for him. Again. Still, the idea of not having to see him, not having to worry about seeing him for forty-eight hours was liberating, exhilarating even.

"Fine," she said.

"Want me to patch you through."

"Fuck no. But thanks."

"That's mature," Ferg said.

"Whatever. Just text me where he is."

"Thanks, Vic. I owe you."

After the invasion, once he was out of the hospital, Walt had moved in with Cady for a while. His front door had been destroyed, and the place was riddled with bullets and blood, and of course, there were the investigations. His injuries weren't life threatening, but they were serious enough that he couldn't be alone anyway, at least at first.

By all appearances, he did still have a girlfriend who could have cared for him as he'd apparently done for her. In retrospect, he probably knew then what they all found out later.

Cady had wanted Vic to stay, said they'd make it work. She might have even suggested it would be fun. It was a sincere offer, and she considered Cady a friend now, but it was out of the question. Before Walt was released from the hospital, Vic found a month-to-month lease up in Sheridan, thirty-five miles away. When people asked wasn't there anything closer, she planned to say yes, but no one asked. There was a lot going at the time.

She'd done this to herself, all of it.

There should have been something in the divorce settlement to get her into a new home or back to Philly if that's what she wanted. But in all her starry-eyed recklessness, she hadn't imagined she'd want to be anywhere but Durant. She'd been that delusional.

Her attorney was either a moron or an unprincipled sleaze. He had to have known better than to allow her to stay in the Newett house. In fact, not one person had pointed that out to her. She was an idiot, that was her excuse. What was everyone else's? She tried not to give too much attention to the idea that friends look out for each other. She knew she'd done that to herself, too.

By the time she dropped the groceries off at her apartment, it was after one.

She was wearing yoga pants and a hoodie with a thermal shirt underneath and UGG boots. Six months ago she would have welcomed this inconvenience, made all kinds of pitiful effort: taken a shower, redone her make-up, shaved. She probably would have made him a sandwich. And she would have gone to great lengths to act nonchalant about the whole thing.

Fuck that shit.

He wasn't who she'd believed he was. She really didn't care what he thought about how she looked.

The hardest part hadn't been that he didn't want her. That she could live with. What she couldn't stand was the image of herself so smitten, so self-destructive. She'd let him run the show, and it wasn't his show to run. She'd been so willing to walk the tightrope with him, to be an option. Before Branch, after Arizona, she'd been on eggshells. It never occurred to her that a love, a friendship so easy to ruin probably wasn't worth it.

Of course, she was still married at the time. As far as she was concerned, they were both assholes. She would discourage any quality individual from having a relationship with either of them.

Soon after she crossed the border into Montana her phone rang, a 406 area code. As she slid the bar to accept the call, she cringed.

"Hey."

He cleared his throat. "Vic."

He sounded like he was in Siberia, whatever that sounds like.

"Yup."

"You on your way?"

"Yeah."

There was some conversation in the background, and a burst of laughter.

"I'm using the shop's phone," he explained, as if embarrassed. He should be.

"I should be there around three," she said. "Ferg says we still have to drop Stanich in Billings."

"They may come pick him up."

"They said that?"

"Not yet," he said.

"So we still have to drop Stanich off in Billings."

"Maybe."

She rolled her eyes.

"Magic Body and Lube," she said. She hadn't actually looked at the name of the place yet. "Holy shit."

"Yeah."

"You think they noticed that?"

"Probably not," he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

"Both the body and the lube." She couldn't help herself. "Magic."

She needed to stop.

"The storefront says 'smoothest body work in town.'"

"Even better," she said.

"Either way."

He'd been working on his suggestive comebacks. Maybe with Donna. Maybe Donna had loosened him up, chewed him like a stiff piece of leather.

"Someone should tell them," she said, serious all of a sudden. "You have time on your hands."

"It would be a public service."

She forced herself to keep the rest of the free-flowing banter dammed.

"Hey . . . uh," he stammered. It was a good reminder of everything she hated about him. "I asked Ferg to come get me."

"If you'd like I can go back and tell him it's him you want."

It was exactly like him to do this, to make someone else suffer for his whims.

"That's not what I meant," he said. "I appreciate you coming, but it was your day off."

"When has that ever stopped anyone?"

"There are labor laws."

"Are you encouraging me to sue you?"

"Join the crowd."

Self-pity. That was more like it.

"I'll be there around three," she said again. "Where's Stanich?"

All day the sky had been overcast white. Now it was graying to the west.

"Right here."

"You've been saying all this in front of him?"

"All what?" The smile had returned.

He was such a dick.

There was silence on the line now. For a moment she thought they'd lost the connection, and it was a relief. Then she heard some rustling, probably him flattening down the back of his hair.

"I'll see you in an hour and fifteen."

"Good," he said. "Thanks, Vic."

Staying had become easier once she'd known she was really done.

She'd always functioned better on her own, done better at home and at work when Sean was out of town, investigated better before there were other officers on the scene, survived better without anyone there to make sure she was surviving.

The decision hadn't even really been hers. Walt wasn't in any condition to return to work. It was never discussed; everyone just assumed. She was in charge again, and that was that.

Enough time had passed. She wasn't unhappy.

Eamonn had a girlfriend now. They seemed right for each other. Vic didn't feel much about that one way or the other. She'd used him; she knew that, and so did he. She'd needed to feel worthy or wanted or something.

What happened between them had been all about Walt. They both knew that, too.

If everything hadn't gone down the way it had, she would have left. Maybe she wouldn't have gone back to Philly, but she wouldn't have stayed here.


	2. Not Even the Rain Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Walt intended to thrash Ferg, but it would be a good eighteen hours before he'd have that opportunity. He feared the minutes in between, every single one of them.

He had to stop drinking coffee.

He was jittery and clammy, and he couldn't sit still. Since hanging up with Vic, he'd been fidgeting and pacing in Magic Lube and Body's greasy little waiting room with Stanich locked to a chair by the door, watching him.

Thank God Billings showed up. He didn't need a witness to this.

From that point, he had fifteen minutes at most.

He stood at the cobwebby picture window and watched the snow falling faster. When he'd arrived five hours earlier, the parking lot had been covered in a thin, packed and salted layer. Now it was fresh powder and the wind was picking it back up to swirl around in the white air. The truck had snow tires, but those were for the ground; it was the sky that was becoming an issue.

He'd actually considered staging a stunt like this. That would be funny now if terror and emotional anguish were funny. His version wouldn't have been so complicated and inconvenient. Pissing her off, as he was no doubt doing now, seemed counterproductive. He'd just wanted enough time alone with her that they'd have to talk, though he still wasn't sure what he would say.

He had about seven and a half minutes to figure that out now.

For a third time he had to ask Ticia, the girl at the counter, for the key to the men's room. Ticia had purple hair and an evident mistrust of law enforcement. Since she didn't like him anyway, after he returned the key, he asked to borrow her phone again to check the weather.

The National Weather Service kept changing its mind, and with every change the outlook became grimmer. At 6:00 that morning the forecast had predicted snow showers and wind increasing throughout the day. After that, it turned into a storm watch, then a storm warning with a severe weather alert. Now it told of blizzard conditions beginning in approximately forty-five minutes and lasting through Monday afternoon.

He felt physically ill.

He picked up the two-year-old copy of _Field and Stream_ he'd already picked up and put down four times. As he did, the Absaroka County Sheriff's truck pulled into the driveway. He dropped the magazine.

He still wasn't sure what it was with them, and now he'd run out of time to think.

He hadn't taken action yet, six months later, because he didn't know. Was it a fight? Was this a long, silent conflict that would eventually blow over or require "making up," which he was absolutely willing to do? Or was it bigger than that? Since he wasn't stupid, usually, he suspected it was.

When the truck door opened, he walked through the garage and out into the parking lot to meet her.

He suspected it wasn't a rift as much as a cutting off. Their bond had been severed.

He knew the precise moment the severing had occurred. And he remembered in painful detail the critical period, the time during which one might carefully wrap the cut-off piece and bandage the wound and get immediate help, get that thing sewn back on, treat the whole unit with extreme care.

During that time, a different woman had been unbuckling his belt.

She saw him right away, and she didn't appear disgusted. It was a good start.

"Come on," he said, leading her through the garage to the waiting room.

Arms wrapped around herself and the hood of her sweatshirt hiding most of her face, she looked around. He expected a comment about the décor or the grease, but she just looked up at him and said, "It's a fucking blizzard out there."

He skimmed over that observation for the time being. "Do you have warmer clothes with you?"

She was wearing fuzzy boots that went half way up her calf. The uppers were wet from the powder. And she had on tight black exercise pants. He'd never seen her in something like that before. That was probably a good thing.

"I'm not a moron." In all that time, she hadn't rolled her eyes at him, but she did now. "But I don't plan on being out there in it."

"Me, neither," he said.

"So what are we waiting for? Let's blow this joint."

She pushed the hood back, maybe to get a better view of him. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked healthy. The sweatshirt was too big, like it might have belonged to Sean. Or Eamonn. The thought of that still made him angry. Or maybe there was someone new. He wouldn't know.

He pulled his rifle out from under the chairs. "Thanks for doing this, Vic."

"Heard it," she said, holding up a sleeve covered hand. "Let's go."

It wasn't that there was conflict at work. She was cordial and cooperative, and more professional than she'd ever been, probably because it had all been on her shoulders for months. They didn't spend much time working together anymore, and they never talked about anything personal. She might have been avoiding him, but if she was, she was doing a good job of disguising it. The reality was they didn't ride together because she was a different cop than she'd been three years ago, and he was still recovering. When they did go out on the occasional call, though, it wasn't the same.

He told Ticia at the counter that he was leaving and would be back Wednesday. She raised her eyebrows at him. Vic raised her eyebrows at her.

They made a dash for the truck, and when they were inside she said, shivering and squeezing her hands together, "What was that all about?"

"What?"

She shook her head, tucking herself away, and put the key in the ignition. "Never mind."

This was what he did to her. It was one of the ways he kept her at a distance when that's where he wanted her. But he didn't want her there. He wanted her here.

"Sorry," he said. "Bad habit. I assume she thought the idea of driving to Wyoming right now was a bit ambitious."

She turned the heat up. Rubbing her hands together, she said, "Is it?"

He wasn't sure what to say. He couldn't be the one to choose this, to trap her here with him for hours.

She pulled her phone out of the sweatshirt pocket and typed quickly with her thumbs.

"Shit," she said. "This keeps changing."

"Yeah."

"So are the roads closed?"

"We'd get through."

She looked out her window. It was getting darker, and it was difficult to distinguish the snow that was coming out of the sky from the snow being blown off the ground.

"But we might not be able to see anything," she said.

"Right."

"And we'd have to drive 25 the whole way."

"Maybe."

"There'd be accidents and stranded cars. And we'd help."

"Probably."

"I'm not dressed for that."

He nodded.

"What's the department of transportation? MDOT?"

"MDT."

She typed it in.

He looked out his window. Visibility was down to maybe twenty feet.

In close quarters like this, closer to her than he'd been for ages, there were the scents he associated with her: the fruity vanilla that he assumed was shampoo, and the musky floral one, lotion maybe.

"Non-essential travel," she said. "Fuck."

He missed her.

After everything, he wouldn't admit that to anyone, not even Henry. Especially not Henry. A few weeks before hell descended on his home, Omar had brought it up.

When Walt told him about the doctor, he said, "What about Vic?"

Walt had been smug, acted oblivious. "What about her?"

As he reassembled a rifle, Omar watched him, waiting for more. When Walt didn't elaborate, Omar shrugged, put the rifle down and picked up another. It never came up again, with anyone.

She put her phone in the cup holder, and looked down at her hands clasped loosely in her lap. Her lips were parted slightly. A gust of wind shook the truck.

"I can't do this," she said, almost in a whisper.

He wanted to touch her shoulder or her knee or something, but it wasn't appropriate, and he knew she wouldn't want him to.

She turned her head to look at him.

"We'll get rooms," he said, but he felt like he was saying something else, something more meaningful. "There's a travel center up the road. The Department will pay. Soon as it clears we'll head home."

She nodded, and she turned the key.

He hadn't known what he had, and that made him a living, breathing cliché. He hadn't realized how she'd been in his corner, how much she had genuinely liked him.

She didn't cause any trouble, and she wasn't hard to work with, but she had been open, to him most of all, and now she was so closed. Until Branch, she'd always been willing to let him in. She was a warm, safe place to go when he needed somewhere, and he shut her out when he didn't.

That's the kind of guy he'd been.


	3. Not Even the Rain Chapter 3

Chapter 3

She wasn't equipped for this.

Aside from commenting on the weather and providing some input on obstacle avoidance, he didn't say anything else. Twenty-five miles an hour had been a generous estimate. It took over twenty minutes to reach the travel center three miles north.

She wanted to seem rigid and lukewarm and put-upon. Instead, she'd grown silent, retreated into herself, and begun to shut down. She looked weak. Anger or even fear would have been welcome. As it was, she was crumbling under the weight of this sadness and shame, again.

Working with him was different. She had that under control.

She was almost never alone with him, and there she had purpose, and authority. A lot of the duties she'd taken over while he was gone, she was still managing. He treated her with the respect that deserved. She never loitered in his presence anymore waiting for direction, and he'd never gone back to barking orders at her or making her stand around waiting while he figured out what he wanted to say, or until he remembered she was there.

This situation was too unstructured. She couldn't choose her profession over him, and she couldn't go home.

The travel center wasn't the snazzy kind with the combined fast-food outposts and the convenience store twice the size of your average 7-11. This one looked like it had been slapped together with whatever materials were available. There were the pumps and the convenience store then across the parking lot, a modular building that might have been a bar. There was a string of Christmas lights but through the screen of snow, not much else was visible.

"You sure they have rooms here?" she asked. It was the most she'd said since they left Hardin.

He just nodded and said, "I'll check."

She waited in the truck with the engine running, trying not to imagine what would happen if they didn't have anything available.

The sadness now was shifting more towards embarrassment at a degree she hadn't felt for a while. Once she'd untangled and sorted through what occurred in the alley that day, she'd been humiliated. Somehow, she'd been too immature to understand the boundaries of their relationship, and he'd finally set her straight. It had probably been building up, and that realization made her want to disappear.

She likened the experience to getting caught masturbating by someone you know well but don't actually want to fuck. It's humiliating and scarring to both parties, and neither person will ever forget it. For the catcher, it's something you know you shouldn't share, but it's difficult to carry all by yourself. So you swear a couple of people to secrecy. But then it becomes part of those people's burden, too, and before you know it, the neighbor four doors down knows what you were doing with a cucumber when you thought no one was home.

She hated not knowing who knew about her neediness, and she hated not being able to explain herself, to say there really had seemed to be something between them. Really.

There had probably been a point at which he realized her little crush was getting out of hand. He probably told people, solicited advice about how to deal with the problem.

If someone asked her how to handle an unwelcome workplace crush, she'd say leave no room for interpretation: Make it a hundred percent clear that you aren't interested. Maybe someone told him that.

It seemed to her feasible that everyone she knew in Durant knew. Walt would never have told Ferg, for example, but Ruby might have, and Ferg liked to talk. Maybe that was why no one cared when she moved to Sheridan. Maybe she seemed creepy to them now.

He came out holding his hat on with an ungloved hand and ducking his head into the wind. He brought freezing air and snow into the cab with him. He rubbed his hands together then blew on them. With all his moving around, she could smell the leather of his jacket.

"So?" she said.

He shook his hand then pulled two keys on plastic yellow keychains out of his pocket.

"They're actual keys," she said.

"Just when I learned how to use the other ones."

She was certain he wouldn't bring up the Arizona incident, though it almost seemed like he was. That was a cringe-inducing memory, too.

"Well, thank God," she said.

She sort of smiled, and sighed with emphasis, so he'd know not only that she was fine, but that nothing relating to him had the power to influence her moods. With the fading daylight and the darkness of the storm, she had no way of gauging how effective it had been.

Around the back of the modular bar was a long, low-roofed building of eight rooms. She parked in one of only three available spaces then switched on the dome light and reached into the back seat for her go-bag.

"So, um," he started.

She pulled the bag over the seat and into her lap, ignoring him, but painting it as distraction. She unzipped the bag and started rifling through it.

"So, um, Vic," he said again.

All she could hope for was his characteristic failure to follow through if she didn't respond. Unfortunately, she didn't get it.

"Let me buy you dinner."

She looked at his face for the first time in nearly an hour. She had consciously avoided it. His jacket was zipped all the way up to his chin. There were specks of melting snow in his whiskers, and there was kindness in his eyes. A bolt of that fear she'd thought she'd prefer crackled through her.

"I'm good," she said. "I have a Luna bar and an orange in here."

She held out her hand for the key.

"That's not much," he said, slowly digging in his pocket. He raised first one key, then the other to the light. "Three and seven."

They were in front of five.

"Three," she said and she moved her hand a little higher, to make her point.

Since he wasn't handing it over, she took one. It was seven, so she had to trade with him, and in the process, their fingers made contact. She pulled back quickly like she'd been burned. His brow furrowed as though that had surprised him or even hurt him, and he had no understanding of why she might not want to touch him.

She wanted to grab his collar and shake him, tell him this right here is why the messages get misinterpreted. This is your part in the whole thing, you asshole. But she didn't.

In hindsight, she could explain away every single episode that she thought had meant something, even him telling her he wanted her to stay. Most of the time she was able to prevent herself from thinking about it at all, but even when she did, the stable side of herself didn't have to fight the flighty side anymore. Professional-Vic no longer had to endure all the reasons why he might still love her, or at least have loved her at some point.

Both sides agreed now: He didn't love her, and he hadn't.

She waited for him to organize himself and get his rifle off the back seat, then they both got out of the truck and went their separate ways.


	4. Not Even the Rain Chapter 4

Chapter 4

He didn't know what to do with himself.

After waiting and watching to make sure she got in all right, he went into number seven, slid the rifle under the bed, and put the emergency bag he'd taken from the Bronco on the table. It was only 4:45.

He wondered what she was doing.

According to the information folder on the dresser, the prefab shed with the Christmas lights along the road was actually a bar and grill. He left his hat in the room and put on a wool beanie and gloves this time, and he trudged over there through swirling, blowing snow.

Inside, it was dark and hot and smoky, though no one appeared to be smoking. There were only two other patrons: one a middle-aged woman who would not be getting herself up and home anytime soon, and the other a young Catholic priest.

He nodded to the priest and took a seat at the counter. The bartender delivered a longneck Ranier and the requisite square napkin, then kept to himself.

Walt watched the storm coverage on the TV behind the bar, and he drank his beer, and he worried. He wanted more time with her, but so far it wasn't going particularly well. To be fair, it wasn't going particularly poorly, either, but he didn't want it to go on long enough to make things worse between them.

He had imagined it would be easier.

In his mind, the primary obstacle to reconciling with Vic, at least for something resembling friendship, was that they were never, ever alone for more than fifteen minutes at a time, and even that was rare. The evidence suggested there were barriers much bigger than that. He couldn't get his heart or his head to accept what it really was, maybe because what it really was seemed unfixable.

She wanted to limit her contact with him. That was obvious. She hadn't wanted to sit in a car with him for two hours, but she'd been willing to do that to help Ferg. The situation, though, had asked for more than she was offering.

He realized that for a long time, they hadn't talked because he hadn't initiated anything. It was in his court where he'd put it. He'd had plenty of time to think about it while he was healing, and still, he'd said nothing. Somewhere in those three or four months his time ran out. At some point, she believed what he'd said to her was what he really wanted.

Now they weren't talking because she didn't want to. It was her turn to heal.

The winds weren't gale force yet, but they were building, rattling the windows and whistling through some hole in the roof. A few hours from now he wouldn't be able to walk across the lot, and everything would be closed anyway.

There were emergency supplies in the room: water, canned food, blankets, that kind of thing. They were for the worst case scenario. He had to believe it wouldn't come to that.

He finished his beer and went over to the convenience store. There wasn't much. He bought some snacks and a few bananas and beer. There was extra water in the truck if they ended up needing it, though it would already be frozen. He bought a razor and a mini bottle of shaving cream and a deck of cards. If it didn't go the way he hoped, he could bide his time drinking, playing solitaire, and reading the Gideon's Bible.

When he got back to the room, he took a shower. Then he shaved. Then he got dressed again. He was in no hurry.

At 8 o'clock, he knocked on her door, and he called her name so she'd know it was him. She didn't respond, and he figured she must be in the bathroom. He waited as long as he could in that kind of cold, then he knocked again and listened. There was nothing.

He looked around him.

There were no footsteps in the snow, but it was coming down heavy. She could have gone to the store five minutes ago and there would be no trace. He didn't want to overreact, but he started to.

Just as he was turning to head over there, the door opened partway. It was dark inside.

"What?" she said.

"I woke you." It didn't sound like he felt bad because he didn't really. He'd done much worse.

"What's up?"

"I . . . uh," he started. He was holding the beer in one hand and the cards in the other, but for some reason the words didn't come. "I was thinking . . . ."

"Spit it out, Walt. It's fucking cold out there. Snow's coming in the door."

"I just thought—."

"For God's sake." She opened the door wider. "Come in," she said in a way that made it clear that wouldn't have been her first choice.

She left the door for him to close while she went to turn on the bedside lamp and the light over the table.

The left side of the queen bed was rumpled. That had been his side, too. He looked away from it and took off his hat.

She came back to where he was standing just inside the closed door and said, "Is your hair wet?"

He was caught, and she was looking at his face, around his mouth, but she didn't say anything else.

"That's a lot of beer," she said when he didn't answer the question about the hair.

"We've got a lot of hours ahead of us." He started to smile, but he wasn't sure if he should or not, so he aborted it.

"You could get some sleep," she said, a grain of attitude in her voice. "That's what I was doing."

She had her arms crossed over her chest. She was still wearing the stretchy exercise pants, but now on top only a white long underwear shirt. It was tight, too. She dropped her arms then crossed them again. She wasn't wearing a bra.

He feared he'd done a very bad thing coming over here.

He didn't want her to think he was objectifying her, or using her, and with her dressed that way and the bed disheveled, he wanted to use her. This was one of the topics he'd been planning to ponder.

The desperation he felt about her wrapped up so tightly within herself, so inaccessible to him, wasn't about sex. He wanted her. No question. He'd wanted her forever. But that wasn't his objective. It wasn't why he needed to be alone with her.

She'd been his when she shouldn't have been, and when she could have been, he'd balked. Now he would settle for her participating in a conversation without shutting him down or cutting it short.

"We could drink a couple of beers," he said. "Play some cards."

"Catch up?" This time the sarcasm was front and center.

"We could do that."

He was skilled at pretending he was clueless.

She let out a loud sigh. Her meaning was clear. He could let her off the hook, tell her he'd check in on her in the morning, but he wasn't willing to let her go that easily.

He put the beer down on the dresser next to the TV, and he didn't look at her at all as he pulled the red string then removed the plastic from the deck of cards.

She shifted her weight, uncrossed and crossed her arms again. Then she tilted her head and looked up at him.

"Fine," she said, "but I'm not feeling very social."

"That's okay," he said. "We'll just pass the time."

"You could read," she suggested, still trying to get him out.

He moved to the table anyway.

"I don't have a book." He put his hand on the back of one of the chairs, ready to pull it out at her go-ahead.

"Give me a minute," she said. She went into the bathroom.

He'd been sweating, but hadn't wanted to be presumptuous. Now he took off his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. It was too big and bulky for that and was already slipping off, but he couldn't bring himself to throw it on the bed.

He took two cans of beer out, popped the tops, and put them on the table. Then he waited. She hadn't put up as much of a fight as he'd expected.

When she came out, her hair was in a braid down her back, and he smelled the musky lotion. The night she'd spent at the cabin, she'd had her hair like that. She'd looked so pretty, and she'd been another man's wife.

Her face was pink, and damp, and she'd put on a bra, which was a relief. She walked over to the bedside table and bent down, searching for something in the bag. He had to look away. He'd already been fluffed up since he came in, and now there was the stirring. He pressed his palm down on it, adjusting it, and willing it to stop right where it was.

She turned around and he leaned forward, slid the hand to his thigh.

"What are we playing?" she said.

She sat down and took a swig of the beer.

"Gin?"

"Sure."

They didn't review the rules, they just started. He was kind of rusty.

After she slaughtered him on the first hand, he said, "Do you like games?"

The way it sounded when it came out of his mouth wasn't at all the way it had sounded in his head.

"Do I like games?" she said, mocking him. "What is this, a first date?"

He felt like an idiot. Or a teenager. A teenage idiot.

Some conversation did come naturally. For example, she said that to win, a player has to discard, so his claim that he won was incorrect. She looked it up on her phone and held it across the table at face level for him, though she seemed to know the writing was too small to read.

Then for a time again, it was just the flipping of the discards, and the swish of the draws, and the slamming of a loose board against the outside of the building, and the hum of the heater, which was really up too high.

She had her sleeves pushed up, and she'd taken off her socks. He wanted to open a button or two on his shirt, and take off his belt, and his boots, but he couldn't assume. Or he could assume: He could assume she wouldn't be okay with that.

She said, "Your deal," and a few minutes later, he said, "That was my card," and she gave it to him, but she didn't apologize.

When she won the fourth game in a row after his single victory, she smacked the cards down on the table then pumped her fist and yelled, "Woot! Woot! Woot!"

He wondered if she'd eaten the orange and the granola bar she'd mentioned. If she had, it might not have been enough.

She dealt the next hand then popped open her third beer.

Since she appeared to have loosened up, he tried again: "So how's the new place?"

"It's not that new," she said. "Almost six months." And that was it.

He felt fidgety for the second time that day.

He wanted to ask her what she did when she wasn't working, who she spent her time with, whether she thought about him, but instead he said, "How's the commute?"

"Have you been to Sheridan?" she asked, frowning at her cards.

She bit her lip. It was a trap.

"You know I have," he said.

"It's like that."

He reached across the table and took the cards out of her hand, laid them face down, then did the same with his. She looked at him like she was seriously considering physical retaliation.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he said.

Her eyes widened, and she leaned back in her chair. She suddenly seemed very sober. And angry.

"Why won't I talk to you?"

"Stop doing that."

"What?" she said.

"Repeating the question I ask you."

"I have a better solution. Stop asking me questions."

"Vic," he said, lowering his voice and putting his elbows on the table. He leaned forward. "Please."

"Give me a fucking break," she said. "Please."

"I just thought maybe we'd both feel better if we talked about it."

"Talked about what? Be specific."

"What happened. With us."

She stood up as though she was going to knock something over or throw something or swipe the cards off the table. But that was more his thing. She actually stood there staring down at her hands again, one picking at the thumbnail of the other. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were damp, and he might have gasped out loud.

This had not been his intention. He hadn't wanted to make her cry, and he didn't want her to cry because he didn't think he could handle it properly.

"Vic," he said like she was a woman on a ledge. "It's okay. I didn't mean—"

"No," she said, staccato and loud. She pulled down one sleeve and wiped one eye, then the other. "You don't get to do that."

He would not ask what. He would wait.

"What happened?" she said and she chewed her lip again. "You drew the line, Walt, and I respected it."

Everything in him wanted to ask, _What line?_ because he supposed that was the way he coped. He knew what line. For six months he'd known what line. And she was right; she'd respected it. There hadn't been one more gram of pressure or expectation after that.

He stood up and she backed away from him. He understood.

"I'm so sorry, Vic."

He couldn't swallow, and he had to turn away from her for a moment because he didn't think he could handle it properly if he cried, either.

"I was wrong to treat you that way."

She sat down on the bed with her head in her hands, and again, he wanted to touch her, to put his arm around her.

He kneeled down next to her, and he put his hand on her knee. She looked at it, but she didn't push it away.

"Are you hungry?" he said.

"What?"

"Two minutes. I'll be right back."

"I don't want to talk," she said.

"You don't have to."

"I don't want you to talk, either."

"I know," he said.

He wasn't sure what would happen when he opened the door and stepped out into the cold and she closed the door behind him. He only knew if she let him back in, they'd be getting somewhere.


	5. Not Even the Rain Chapter 5

Chapter 5

She couldn't let him in again.

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy his company. Obviously she did, or had, or none of this would be an issue.

But she'd come a long way, and she wasn't going back. As painful as the whole ordeal had been, career-wise she'd ended up in a good place. When the time came, she'd be ready to move on with way more professional potential than she'd had a year ago, and she sensed the time would be coming soon. His limp was barely noticeable anymore. Of course, she noticed, but she noticed everything.

He was a pro at acting like he didn't understand. He was also pretty good at actually not understanding, especially when emotions were involved. Right now she didn't know how much he got it. She assumed he wouldn't hurt her on purpose, but if he didn't understand what it had done to her, the kind of beating her heart had taken, he might not think it through, whatever it was he was doing.

It was odd the way he'd shown up: freshly showered and somehow shaven. He'd never seemed like the type to try to get laid, but for a moment there, she'd feared that's what he might be doing. He'd looked at her boobs, though he had looked away quickly, and at the bed, and away from that, too. He hadn't crossed any lines, broken any codes, but there had been something when he first came in that had never been there before.

If she let him in now then he shut her out again, she'd retreat further into herself, close up even more, and there wasn't much further to go without turning the outside world dark.

He'd said two minutes, and if he'd been back in two minutes, she would have turned him away, said she was going to bed. Thirteen minutes had passed. The loose board outside was banging louder and faster. She didn't want to overreact. Maybe he'd had to go to the bathroom, or maybe he'd changed his mind, which was okay with her.

She parted the curtains and looked out. Through the swirling white haze she could see easily two feet of snow piled up on the hood of the truck. There was no sign of him, but she hadn't expected there would be. The idea of going out there right now was about as appealing as taking an ice bath, but if he'd changed his mind, he would have told her, maybe not that directly, but he would have let her know not to wait.

Earlier, once he'd stopped hovering and gone into his room, she'd gone back out to get her winter gear and the flashlight and the water, all four gallons. They were already frozen. Since then they'd been thawing next to the bed by the heater.

She got dressed and headed up the walk, which was now knee-deep with unsettled snow. A gust of wind snuck up on her, almost knocked her down. She stayed close to the building and shuffled along.

She saw the black plastic bags sitting next to the door illuminated by the porch light before she saw him. For a split second, fear gripped her gut and twisted. But there he was, off to the side, outside the circle of light, kneeling in the snow, digging through it.

"Walt," she said. "What the fuck are you doing?"

He looked up at her like he'd forgotten about her. "I . . . uh," he said, and he was shivering. "I dropped the key."

"How long have you been looking?" she said, crouching down next to him. "Why didn't you come get me?"

"Just a few minutes," he said, but his movements and even his speech seemed a bit slow. It had to have been longer.

"Here." She handed him the Maglite. "I'll grab the shovel."

They'd find that stupid key if she had to stay out there all night.

"Did you check the office?" she asked as she attached the handle.

He continued to shuffle the snow around with his hands, holding the flashlight under one arm.

"Walt?"

He stopped and looked up at her again. "They're closed."

"So you've been out here for more than a few minutes."

"Just a little."

"Okay, well," she said, "we either find it or you're sleeping out here, so there's your motivation."

He didn't move.

"You have to stand up," she said. "You're wearing jeans. You'll freeze."

"I'm sorry about this, Vic," he said.

"Whatever. Just get up."

He held the flashlight for her while she dug and sifted, thin layers, very methodically, then they switched. He said he'd dropped it to the right of the door. He was sure of that. He was right handed, and he'd been facing the door, so he must have.

It was nowhere to be found.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "There's no deadbolt. We can kick it in."

He was really shivering now and he had ice crystals on his eyelashes.

"Come on," she said. "You need to get warm."

He was limping.

They were two doors down, near the truck when she said, "What was in the bags?"

"Food," he said, and he started to turn slowly.

"No. Just keep going."

She walked back up there, and as soon as she picked up the first bag, the overhead light shone off the metal key ring. Thank God.

When she caught up to him, she said, "I found it."

He stopped and looked at it, like he didn't believe her. "Where?"

"On the other side," she said. "I guess I kicked through the right pile."

He took it from her and thanked her, shivering even more.

"You can have those," he said, nodding towards the bags. "I better go get changed."

"You have long underwear under those?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I wasn't planning on being out long."

"You have it in your bag?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine," he said.

"Here." She handed him her key and took his. "I'll get the bag. Get those off and take a hot bath or something. I'll be right back."

"I don't think I need a bath."

"Just do it, Walt. You're limping."

She turned and went before he could object, or worse, thank her again.

When she came in, his jeans were draped over the chair she'd been sitting in, and he'd moved it close to the heater.

She knocked on the bathroom door. "You okay?"

"Fine," he said.

"I have your bag. I'll drop it inside the door."

"Thanks."

She almost said, I won't look, but that seemed so loaded, and she was afraid of what he might say in response. To the best of her ability, she just didn't look.

She took her boots and jacket and snow pants and hat and gloves off and hung them or laid them out wherever they'd fit in the small room.

He came out a few minutes later wearing a dark, wool sweater and long john bottoms and thick socks. He had the towel in front of his crotch. She didn't have to ask why. Again she thought about promising not to look, but this time it would be an out and out lie.

"I should let you get some sleep," he said.

It felt like rejection.

"You're giving up that easily?"

She'd meant to sound light, but some sadness snuck in, and he heard it.

"I'm not giving up, Vic," he said.

She went into the bathroom to feel embarrassed in private.

When she came out, he'd put the towel down and he was clearing off the table. He moved the cards and the empty beer cans she could have cleared up while he was gone, and he laid everything out: beef jerky, bananas, pumpkin seeds, two frozen burritos, a bag of lime Lays, and some Famous Amos cookies.

"There wasn't much to choose from," he said.

"Better than nothing." She pointed to the Lays. "Those are really good."

At least his long johns were a dark material.

He put his jeans on a towel on the bed and brought the chair back to the table. They warmed the burritos in the microwave and grazed through everything with another beer each. She really had been hungry, and she felt better.

After they'd cleaned everything up, she said, "Five card draw."

"Poker?"

"Yeah," she said.

"I don't think I have any change."

"Not for money."

The side of his mouth crept up into a grin.

"No," she said, too firm, dog-scolding firm.

He got serious again.

"Not that," she said. "You win a hand, you can ask me whatever you want, and I have to answer."

"Okay."

"Or you can say something. One thing."

"All right."

"I win a hand, same deal."

"You'll ask me a question," he said.

"There's nothing I want to know, so probably not."

"You'll say something."

"Maybe," she said. "The point is I can if I want, okay?"

"Okay."

"Everything stays here. Total immunity. Nothing impacts work."

"Of course," he said.

"Are you warm enough now?"

His face was flushed, and his eyes were deep blue, and his hair was messy in that way that looks better than when he thinks it looks good.

"I'm fine," he said.

She dealt first.

To start she had nothing, so she traded everything but the ace. She drew a pair of threes. He had three nines.

"Why did you move to Sheridan?" he asked.

"I needed a change."

He nodded.

She thought he was going to object to the limited response, but he didn't, so she dealt.

This time she had three queens on the first deal. The two cards she drew didn't improve the situation.

He had a full house.

"Where will you be, career-wise, a year from now?"

"Undersheriff somewhere."

"Other than here."

"We don't have an undersheriff position, so yeah."

She won the next one with a king high.

"You made a choice," she said.

"I know."

The next one she had a flush, and he had a straight.

"Your signals were mixed."

"I know," he said.

He won the next three in a row:

"What do you do in your free time?"

"Go to the gym. I took a painting class. "

"Like painting houses?"

"That's funny. You wasted a question."

"Sorry."

"Watercolor."

"Do you date?" he asked.

She took a sip of her beer. They were her rules.

"No," she said.

The next one was hers:

"Who knows?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who knows you had to put me in my place?"

"Put you in your place?"

He looked legitimately confused.

"Who did you tell about my inappropriate behavior towards you?"

"Vic. I don't know what you're talking about. Really."

"Fine."

"I didn't tell anyone anything. We got in a fight. Why would I tell anyone that?"

"We weren't in a fight," she said. "We were the opposite of in a fight. You told me there was nothing to fight about."

"Well, I didn't think you were harassing me," he said. "That's not what I thought. I was angry."

"You just wanted me out of your life?"

He put his hands on the edge of the table as though to push back and stand up, but he just stayed like that.

"What?" he said, baffled.

He didn't seem to be faking it.

"What the fuck do you think happens when you tell someone your life is none of their business?"

She had to consciously make herself not grit her teeth. His eyes were getting red and glassy.

"You slept with Eamonn."

"After you started seeing the doctor."

"Bullshit," he said. "You had it going on with him while I was on leave."

"Bullshit. And what difference would it have made to you anyway? There wasn't anything going on with us."

"Wasn't there?"

"You know, Walt, if you think there was, that makes you an even bigger asshole."

"I tried to talk to you. You wouldn't talk."

"That's not how I remember it." She handed him the cards. "Just deal."

He won that hand.

"I didn't know what else to do," he said.

"You mean besides push me away and put your dick in her?"

"I didn't. Put my . . . dick in her."

"Don't lie. That's against the rules, too."

"I'm not lying. I got shot. In the thigh. Before it got to that point."

She stared at him. It was a lot to compute.

"But you were sleeping with Eamonn. Regularly."

"No. Just once."

"Don't lie."

"Okay."

He won again.

"I didn't handle it well," he said.

"Handle what well?"

"My feelings. I didn't want to feel what I was feeling."

She didn't ask him what he was feeling. She didn't want to know.

She won.

"Were we ever friends?"

He put his cards down, moved closer to the table again.

"Yes," he said.

"But you wanted me to believe we weren't?"

"I didn't think we should get any closer."

"You couldn't have just told me that?"

He put his hand on top of his head, squeezed his hair. "I should have. But you might have left."

"So your answer was to tell me something that would pretty much guarantee that?"

"You're still here."

"I'm still here, Walt, because you got shot that same afternoon and you were crippled for four months afterwards. If that hadn't happened, you never would have seen me again."

"You wouldn't have left like that."

"Why the hell not? You had two deputies. You could have borrowed another."

He won the next hand.

"I didn't want you to leave."

Then she won.

"But you kissed her."

"Yeah."

"And you planned to sleep with her."

"Yeah."

He won.

"It was a mistake," he said. "Clearly."

"You're allowed to want what you want."

"If I'd believed that, we wouldn't be here."

He won again.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I've never been so sorry."

"Me, too."

She won.

"Are you a good kisser?"

He smiled.

"I like to think so."

He won.

"Do you want to find out?"

"No."

She won.

"Maybe."


	6. Not Even the Rain Chapter 6

Chapter 6

For the longest ten seconds of his life, his heart slammed itself against the inside wall of his chest. Their eyes were locked. She seemed to have stopped breathing.

There was fear in the air, a noxious vapor, emanating from who he didn't know, but at least some of it had to be him.

It wasn't that he didn't want to. He did. He wanted to.

There had been times lately, standing at Ruby's desk or out in the office talking to Ferg or even Eamonn, when he'd watched her across the room at her desk, hyper-focused, the morning sun in her hair, and those lips, and he'd thought it through, imagined excusing himself from whoever it was.

In his mind, there's no limp, and he's not worn-out and so entrenched in middle-age. He's virile, and he's got a whole life ahead of him. He walks right up to her, like he used to, and he looks down until she looks up, and he says, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

It's his fantasy, but still, she has to rein her attention in, and when she does, she says something impatient, something like, "Now?"

He says, gentle and soft, "Yeah, Vic. Now."

She gives him some attitude, but not too much, and she follows him into his office, where he closes the door, and she says something Vic-like again, and then he just does it: He leans, and he tilts his head to get right there, and he kisses her.

Sometimes in this fantasy, which can go any way he wants it to, she pushes him away or punches him or even knees him in the nuts, but other times, more often, she retreats for an instant, to take a breath or to get her head straight, then she comes back to him, kisses him, parts her lips for him and maybe even moans a little, and she puts her hand on his chest, squeezes his shirt, getting some hair with it, pinching.

It's like morphine, or heaven.

There in that motel room, though, after all the wanting, he was paralyzed.

Then she broke the eye-contact, and the heart so bent on slamming stopped, mid-slam, and dropped.

It seemed still to be dropping.

But maybe there was a God because there was a buzz, like summer insects in the bluelight, and the lamps flickered. They both looked around, eyes only, as though any bodily movement could send it over the edge into darkness.

"Uh-oh," she said.

"Uh-oh what?"

"Maybe we should have been taking this more seriously."

"We're okay," he said. "We've got the Mag. And some flairs in the truck."

"We can't light flairs inside," she said.

This felt a lot more normal.

"The emergency boxes have candles," he said.

"They're zip-tied."

"We have knives."

She wasn't looking at him. She was focused on the situation they were about to find themselves in, and the relief was palpable. It was hers, but it was his, too.

They'd been saved, for now.

Again, there was the buzz and the flicker, and this time, the room blackened, and the mini-fridge stopped humming. Then it sparked up again, and the lights came back on.

"We're screwed," she said.

"We'll be okay."

Now we will, he thought, but he wasn't sure that was true.

When it happened again, they weren't so lucky. Or they were luckier. There was the buzz, and then the flicker, and then the silence of the refrigerator, and finally the total absence of light.

This time, the darkness took.

"No fucking way."

Without electricity monopolizing the senses, the wind seemed to be louder, howling and erratic. The loose board sounded somehow looser, somehow closer to disengaging. He imagined it coming down and shattering the window.

He heard the creak of her chair, and sensed her getting closer, but he couldn't see her. Either his eyes hadn't adjusted yet, or there really was no light, from anything. He felt her moving past him, and he thought about reaching for her, but then what? It wouldn't happen like this. Her attention was elsewhere. She was past him anyway, over near the bed.

Something on the dresser fell. Then there was bright, blue-tinged light, and she was back, sitting across from him at the table with her phone.

"Yellowstone County?" she said.

"Big Horn."

"That's right."

In the florescent glow from the phone, she looked ghostly.

"Nothing yet," she said.

"What does the weather say?"

She typed, concentrating.

"Winter weather warning. Blizzard conditions through Monday morning."

"It said Monday afternoon earlier," he said.

"So it's getting better and worse."

He wasn't sure she was talking about the storm.

"Well," she said, standing up again, "we know we're not leaving tonight."

"Did we think we were?"

"I hoped," she said, and he wanted to know when. When had she hoped? Was it before or after they started getting somewhere, finally?

She stood just out of arm's reach, and she said, "It's close to 1:00."

He looked at his watch, but the light from her phone was too far away to help, and the built-in light had stopped working years ago.

"We should get some sleep," she said, and she walked towards the door, making clear that she meant he should leave, though he didn't need that clarified.

It was for the best, he realized. He wouldn't have been able to stop. Maybe she wouldn't have been into it, and that would have been that. But if she had, he couldn't conceive of them being there, trapped alone together, and not following through. For them, he knew it wouldn't be like that.

This was already enough to live with for the time being.

He was only now coming around to understanding just how much of an ass he'd been. He'd known he'd made mistakes, but this was an entirely new level of shame he needed to sort through. Besides, at this point, he didn't know what he was asking for.

He imagined her standing there tapping her foot, like a cartoon character, but when he looked at her she wasn't.

"I have water," she said.

She walked over to the far side of the bed, the rumpled side next to the heater and his jeans, and she picked up two gallon jugs. He hadn't noticed them there, which seemed strange to him. He'd stood right there in front of the heater, spreading his pants out to dry.

"You brought them in," he said.

"Just in case. Good thing, I guess."

"Yeah."

He got up, and he didn't cover his crotch. The long johns were still plenty revealing, but it was too dark for her to see much of the flopping, and maybe he didn't care if it wasn't. He faced her as he pulled his jeans up and buttoned them, slowly. He was challenging her, but she watched, so she was accepting it.

He put his coat on, and he went into the dark bathroom to get his shirt.

He was taking too long, but the foot tapping feeling had passed. For a moment, he thought she might be building up to something, to some great reveal, but she just said, "We might as well sleep."

"It'll be cold in a few hours."

"Extra blankets in the closet. We'll check yours, too. And there are four in the truck, two each. It's one night."

"We hope it's one night," he said, emphasis on 'hope.'

He was being a dick. He didn't want to be like that. She didn't owe him anything.

She bundled up again, and he watched.

They kicked through the powder and pulled the blankets from the bins in the bed of the truck, then she walked up to number seven with him, carrying two of the blankets, a gallon of water, and one of the bags of food. They checked his closet. There were two blankets inside. She put them on his bed for him.

"We might as well sleep in as long as we can," she said.

"Yeah."

He tried to hand her the flashlight.

"I've got my phone," she said.

"Is it charged?"

"Yeah. It was plugged in. Plus I have a battery pack."

"All right."

"So I'll see you in the morning."

"I'll walk you back," he said.

"I don't need you to walk me back. It's three doors down."

"Four."

"Whatever."

She left, and he followed, but they didn't talk anymore. At the door, she quickly looked up at him and said, "Thanks."

Her face was in shadow. He didn't know what she was thanking him for.

"See you in the morning," he said.

The bed was warm enough, but he was wound so tight he couldn't sleep.

He gave it time. He thought and thought, and felt and felt, around and around and around until the tension was too much.

So he handled it. It's not like he was saving it for her.


	7. Not Even the Rain Chapter 7

Chapter 7

She'd dodged a bullet.

In the near-dark, she'd watched as he wrangled his junk into his 501s, his eyes on her the whole time. She hadn't been able to see them, not clearly, but she'd felt it. And she hadn't looked away. She was tired of backing down.

He was being a bitch, hurt that she still wanted to go home, like she was supposed to suddenly value their four hours of tension-logged bonding over everything else in her life. Well, she didn't.

But she would have fucked him, and that scared her.

It wasn't just the way he'd slid those buttons into their holes, head tilted, one slow, deliberate push at a time. He could lose his job over that. She would never say anything, but he could. She hadn't known he had that in him. Now she'd seen the swagger, the shadow of the equipment, protruding and mobile beneath the thin material. It only made her want to fuck him more. That scared her, too.

Over time, she'd grown to hate his balking and delaying and stammering, but tonight she was grateful for it. If he'd acted instead of freezing like wildlife in high beams, they'd be going at it now in this room that was still too hot, but wouldn't be for long. The power outage would have barely registered if he'd pulled her to him and kissed her instead of thinking, thinking, thinking the way he always did. He'd saved them.

All evening he'd been sweating, erotic drops rolling from his sideburns, down his jugular, curving across his neck and down into his chest hair at the open collar of his shirt, and after his foray into the snow, beneath the band of his wool sweater. She had been, too, in her thermal shirt and yoga pants, the room eighty-five degrees at least, and the pheromones sucking up the oxygen. Even before he'd taken it there and she'd vaguely accepted, while they were both still livid, gaping wounds, she'd imagined sitting on his lap, only those two thin, stretchy layers between them, and licking that salty line.

Once he was gone, though, despite the tension and the clattering, moaning wind, she settled into bed with the extra layers on standby, and she fell asleep. It had been a long week. It had been a long winter.

Her sleep was peaceful and empty until something woke her hours later. The room was noticeably colder. She didn't recall moving the rest of the blankets on top of her, but she was under the whole heavy pile. Though her nose was a chip of ice, the rest of her was still warm.

It was 4:53, and 10 below. Her phone's battery was already in the red. The weather alerts were still there, but the warnings had been removed. She leaned over the side of the bed to check the water. No ice. So it was still above 32 inside, but not by much she guessed.

Then she noticed: The tempo of the board knocking against the outside wall had slowed, and the wind was quieter, only rattling the window every now and then.

She put on her beanie and her down jacket and her snow pants and shoved all the extra clothing under the covers with her, and she thought about him, four doors down, asleep.

She wished they'd never talked, that she'd never let him in at all.

From that point on, she was restless.

For months now it had been behind her. She didn't think about him all that much. She was busy, forward-focused. After that day in the alley, she never pined for him again. She cried, and she grieved, and sometimes she still did, but she didn't want him anymore. He wasn't interested, and to her, that had never been appealing.

Now it was getting all messed up again. She just wanted to make it through to spring.

She slipped into a fitful, animated sleep. Four times she shook herself free of a dream segment in which she was buttoning his pants for him under stadium lights. In another, she was kneeling in front of him, and he was unbuttoning, and she was waiting, squirming. But it didn't come before there was a knock at the door and she was jolted away from him, again.

It was 7:45. The power was still out. She scrambled out from under the covers.

When she opened the door, she didn't make eye contact. She didn't want him to know.

"You're dressed," he said, stamping snow off his boots and coming in without being asked. His voice seemed unusually deep, and loud.

He closed the door behind him. He'd been so tense and defensive when he left the night before, but something had given. There was a calmness about him now, a looseness.

"It's warm in here," he said.

"Forty maybe."

She walked over to the table, away from him.

"They have coffee over in the store."

"How?"

"Generator. Can't you hear it?"

She hadn't thought about it, but she could.

"Looks like we'll be able to get through in a couple of hours," he said.

"Good." It was a dig, but he didn't seem to notice.

She picked up the cards and stacked them, and put them in the box. He stepped closer, took his wool hat off, and held it in front of him.

"Vic."

She gathered the five cans on the table and put them back in the cardboard 12-pack box with the others. She wanted him to leave.

"Vic, I'm uh . . . I'm." He scratched his head. "I apologize for last night."

"Which part?"

He placed his gloved fingers on the edge of the table. She looked up at him, ready for him to take it away just like she knew he would.

"Don't worry, Walt." She felt strangely fragile and teary. "I won't hold you to anything."

He squinted at her, then that warm hint of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

"I just meant I was being a jerk before I left."

"You were."

"Yeah," he said. "So that's what I meant."

"Okay."

He stalled out, staring at her, but before she could transition to his departure, he said, "You can hold me to everything."

She picked up the cards again; she wanted to throw them at him.

He looked at her hand like he knew, then he put his hat back on.

"I want you to," he said.

"Fuck, Walt. Just stop."

He gave her a moment, averted his eyes. Then he said, "Maybe we can finish our talk at some point."

She wanted to hurt him.

"I don't think so. We're fine. Let's just leave it at that."

He nodded.

"I'll be back with coffee in a little bit," he said.

She didn't respond.

After he left, she sat on the edge of the bed, head in hands again, short on breath. But it was too cold for self-pity, so she got up, and she got moving.

She went out and shoveled around the truck, then started it up. The owner came by on his old John Deere plow clearing the parking lot. When Walt returned with the coffee, she went back inside and packed up her stuff while he cleared the snow from the hood and the roof.

They were on the road by 9:00, and they spent the first hour of the trip listening to the road conditions and weather on the radio. Patches of pale blue were expanding in the white clouds. The going was slow.

Just before they reached the border, he said, "Whatever you want, Vic."

She was quiet for a while, had to orient herself before responding.

"I don't want anything," she said. "I drank too much. Can we just leave it? Please."

"Yeah." In her peripheral vision she saw him nodding. "We can."

He offered to have Ferg or Ruby come pick him up in Sheridan. He wanted her to take the day off, but she declined. For one thing, she wasn't taking him back to her apartment, and she couldn't just drop him at Starbucks or something. Anyway, she didn't want another day off. She wanted to work. More than anything, she wanted that.

Ten miles out of Durant she said, "You don't get to just change your mind."

He looked at her.

"I get to change my mind, Vic. But I can't expect you to give a shit if I do."

"Well, I don't."

"I understand."

His tone suggested he didn't believe her. It made her want to elbow him in the nose.

"I promise to be more careful with your heart from now on."

"How sensitive of you," she said. "But my heart doesn't care."

It was a weak retort. She might has well have told him she still loved him. Which she didn't.

When they got to the station, she stayed outside organizing the bins. The sun was bright now in the blue sky, but it was still so cold. She felt raw.

She waited until he came out and drove off in the Charger to go in. No one was there.

She changed and brushed her teeth and her hair and washed her face then booted up her computer and started in on a case from a couple of weeks back, a bomb threat at Durant High.

Half an hour later she heard his boots on the stairs and her heart quivered. She considered leaving, taking a late lunch, but she couldn't start that, not if she planned to stay for the time being.

He went in through his private door. Maybe he'd had enough of her, too.

But then his office door opened and his boots knocked and scuffed across the hardwood towards her until there he was, standing next to her desk. He was wearing a clean shirt and his hair was damp.

"You hungry?" he said.

His warm eyes pissed her off.

"No."

"Tomato soup and grilled cheese."

She was starving.

"Come on, Vic. You haven't eaten all day."

She hated that he knew that.

"Fine," she said.

He gestured with his head towards his office. It had been a trap.

"Seriously?"

He smiled, like he'd won a hand. But he hadn't.

She got up and followed him. She didn't want to drag it out.

There were two white deli bags on one of the chairs.

"You couldn't have just brought that to me?" she said.

He closed the door, and he turned around. He was standing too close.

"I could have," he said, his voice low and intimate.

She felt boneless, and weightless.

Nearly twenty-four hours later, he was still clean-shaven, which wasn't possible.

"What are you doing?" she asked, looking up at him. She didn't step back.

"Being less of an ass."

She felt the rumble of his voice in her stomach.

It didn't take her by surprise when he bent down, and leaned in.

He smelled like man-soap and laundry, and toast, but that might have been the sandwiches. He paused, warm fingers under her chin. His eyes said he'd understand if she pushed him away. She didn't.

His lips were softer than she had imagined.

When he pulled back, she said, "That's totally inappropriate."

"I know."

He began to straighten, but she wasn't finished. She grabbed his shirt, one of the new blue ones, and she got on her toes. She kissed him back, longer, then deeper. When their tongues made contact, he groaned and bit her lower lip, not hard.

She let go of his collar and stepped back.

His lips were wet, and his eyes unfocused.

"Never again," she whispered.

"Okay."

She pointed to one of the bags. "Is that one mine?"

He ran his index finger over his bottom lip.

"Yeah."

"Thanks," she said.

She took the bag, and she closed the door behind her.


	8. Not Even the Rain Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Three days later, late-morning, she appeared at the threshold of his office and remained there as though the expanse between the door and his desk were a river swollen with snowmelt.

He didn't tell her to come in. He was trying not to pressure her.

She leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. Her eye contact was only approximate.

"Clayton Baker's active on a site called High Plains Jihadi," she said.

"Based where?"

"The ISP's in Santa Fe, but there's a buttload of software out there for faking an IP address."

"What do we have on him?"

She pulled her notebook out of her back pocket and flipped through it.

"Clayton William Baker, twenty-five, spent nine months in Afghanistan in 2012."

"Marines?"

"Army," she said.

He watched her scanning her notes, biting her lip. He couldn't expect himself not to think about it.

"Medical discharge in 2013 after three years in," she said. "Private First Class."

"Didn't get very far."

"Nope."

"Psychological?"

Donna had ruined that word for him.

"Doesn't say. I put in a call to Martinez in Cheyenne."

She flipped the page.

"Lives with his mom in a trailer west of town."

"Conestoga Acres?"

"Yeah. Calls himself Abdul-Hafiz Aadil."

"Seems like we would have heard if he'd been doing that around here," he said.

She nodded. "He'd get his ass kicked. Probably just online."

He dropped his pen on the blotter and stood up. Her eyes widened so he stayed where he was.

Consciously lowering his voice, he said, "Can you come in, Vic?"

He sounded weak. She did that to him, and it pissed him off.

Regardless of this thing between them, he was her superior here, and he needed to continue to speak to her that way. It was completely reasonable for him to expect his deputy to be inside the office when reporting to him. The line was so fine, though. Since returning to work two months ago he'd been negotiating it, but now, after the weekend, after what had happened here, what she'd allowed to happen, it was even finer, and sharper.

She gave him about three inches.

He couldn't tell her to close the door, especially since it wasn't really necessary. Both Ferg and Eamonn were out on patrol, and Ruby was on the phone. Besides, none of this was sensitive or confidential.

"Is this guy a legitimate threat?" he asked.

"Seems like kind of a dweeb," she said. "And all we have on him is another dweeb's accusation. But I don't want to be the one to decide that. Not in this climate."

"No record?"

"Nothing on him, but his stepdad got arrested in 2008 for beating the shit out of him."

"In Absaroka?"

"Converse. They were living in Douglas." She flipped the page again. "Four broken ribs, facial lacerations and bruising, broken right arm."

"So Baker's angry."

"It was eight years ago."

"That stuff tends to stick," he said.

She met his eyes for the first time, shifted her weight, slid the notebook back into her pocket then crossed her arms.

"Let's grab lunch," he said, still with the sensitive tone, still sounding spineless.

They'd had lunch together hundreds of times, granted not lately, but the suggestion now sounded indecent, and unfair.

Up there in Hardin, in that motel room, he'd made a fool of her, again. Again, he'd drawn her in then squashed her like an insect. Then when she'd accepted his rejection, again, and wanted him to go, he'd acted hurt. He hadn't been able to process what that moment of indecision had done to her.

As soon as some of that drum-tight tension was relieved, though, he began to understand what he'd done: He'd put it out there, and she'd timidly accepted it, this woman who was anything but timid, and he'd torn it from her hand, again.

The next morning he'd resisted the urge to apologize for that part, the worst part. No one had to explain to him how selfish it would have been, how much it would have been about making himself feel better. By some miracle of compassion, he realized that mentioning it at all would only twist the knife.

The gesture later in the day, in the office, had been his attempt at amends, and it was an opportunity for her to reject him. But then she hadn't. She'd kissed him back.

"I can't," she said.

"I'll bring you something."

"Don't worry about it. I need to go talk to Baker's mom while he's at work."

"Where does he work?" he asked.

"Anderson's Hardware."

"Jihadi in a hardware store. That's not good."

"I know, right?"

Her decision had sounded final, but she didn't turn to go, so he came around the desk, slowly so as not to alarm her. She didn't back away, but she didn't uncross her arms, either.

When she'd said _n _ever again__ , he'd known what she meant. It was a boundary: The next time he pushed her away would be the last. He believed her, and it was good to have it out there. No other possible meaning had entered his mind, not even the most obvious one, and not even when it probably should have.

Now for three days she'd barely spoken to him or even looked at him. The energy behind her detachment was different from what it had been over the past six months, but it was still detachment. He might have been projecting, but he thought she felt what he felt: exposed, a little embarrassed, and so, so hungry.

There wasn't much evidence of the last part. Or any of it really.

Maybe she'd meant something else.

His voice crackled when he said, "The Bronco's ready."

She was looking up at him like she was afraid of him, or like he'd said something else entirely, something disconcerting.

"Could you drive me up there?"

He expected a sigh, or an eye roll, or a flat-out refusal, but she just stared up at him like he was still speaking and she was still listening.

"Vic?"

"Maybe someone else could do it this time."

"No problem," he said.

But it was a problem.

When he got back she was gone. Instead of holding the bag hostage, he put it on her chair. It was chicken vegetable. He'd wanted tomato, but that was Monday's soup-of-the-day.

By the time she returned it was late afternoon, and Ferg and Eamonn were both in the office. His door was only half open so he couldn't see much of her. She didn't check in with him like she used to. He heard the rustling of the bag and her boots crossing the floor to the microwave and then the ding of the microwave and Ferg saying something and all three of them laughing then Ruby interjecting something firm then silence, and Vic walking back to her desk.

He needed to ask someone to give him a ride, but he didn't think he could tolerate two hours in the car with either Eamonn or Ferg. Plus they were both working the late shift, and he needed them there. Things were still a bit shaky with Henry, and Cady was working on a big case. If worse came to worst, he could pay Travis to drive him.

It was after dark when she came into his office, all the way in this time. He thought he'd heard her leave half an hour earlier.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

He sat up straight and pushed back from the desk.

"Have a seat," he said. It sounded less wimpy, more authoritative.

She sat down, and she looked into her lap only for a second before making direct, disturbing eye contact and saying, "Why does everyone think you're such a stand-up guy when there's so little proof to support that theory?"

"What?" he said.

He wondered if she was drunk.

"I mean, you're not a particularly nice person."

His jaw muscle spasmed.

"What are you getting at, Vic?"

"You have anger issues."

"Okay."

"You refuse to listen to people."

His respiration was increasing. He slapped his palms down on his thighs and rubbed them, but when nothing more came of that, she continued.

"You led a woman on, slept with her, then blew her off the next day like it meant nothing to you, like she was the one who'd done something wrong."

"I thought you didn't like Lizzie," he said.

"That's not the point."

"What is the point? I'm not getting it."

"You mistreat suspects and witnesses, show zero empathy for your daughter or anyone else you actually know for that matter, and act like an all-around a-hole, yet somehow you maintain hero status around here. I just want to know what the fuck is wrong with everyone."

He stood quickly and she flinched. He walked over to the door and closed it, too hard, then turned on her. She was standing now, facing him, and he flinched.

"What's the problem, Vic?" he growled, trying to keep his voice down.

"The problem, Walt, is I always liked you despite all that stuff. I always thought you were a good person even though you did these really questionable things."

"And I appreciated that."

"No you didn't," she said. "Don't do that to me."

He wanted to move closer, but he didn't know how. Then she did it, got close enough that she had to look almost straight up to see his face.

"I refuse to live in that fictional world anymore."

"Okay," he said. "That's okay."

"I'm not done."

He waited.

"I have issues, Walt. Everybody knows it. I'm not proud of them, but I'm owning them."

"That's good, Vic."

"Don't patronize me."

He waited.

"You have issues, too. Big ones. You're not some pillar of integrity, and I'm no longer perpetuating that myth."

"Okay."

"I'm not playing the screw-up around here anymore."

"I understand."

"I don't worship you, Walt. Lately, I don't even admire you. But I respect you. And sometimes I like you."

Her words swirled warm and soft around his cold heart.

"Okay," he said.

"I don't get paid enough to be the scapegoat. If we're doing this thing, you have to evolve, too, deal with yourself where you are, not where your fans think you are."

"What thing?"

"Are you actually hearing anything I'm saying?"

"Okay," he said. "You're right. What fans?"

"Your backwards ass patriarchal small town folk."

He was afraid to move. She stepped back.

"It's hard for me to trust you," she said.

"I know, Vic."

She pressed her lips together, hiding them, but he saw the quiver anyway. He didn't panic. If she needed to cry, that was all right with him.

He touched her shoulder, testing it out. Her eyes were misty now, and she looked away. He pulled her to him.

At first she was stiff, and she didn't hug him back. But then she did.

"I'm listening now," he said into her hair.

She sniffled, and let out a deep breath into his chest. Then she looked up at him.

"I'm not promising you anything."

"I understand."

"My career comes first," she said.

"I wouldn't expect otherwise."

He shifted his weight and the floorboard creaked.

"Can you be ready in twenty minutes?"

"For what?" he said.

"I thought you needed to pick up your truck."


	9. Not Even the Rain Chapter 9

Chapter 9

He had to use the bathroom then talk to Ferg and Eamonn, so she went down ahead of him and sat there under the dim streetlight with the engine running and the heater hustling the icy air out of the cab.

He wasn't quick, and when he did come down, he went right back up to get the department credit card.

There was too much time to think.

It hadn't been some laying-down-of-the-law, establishing-of-boundaries powwow. At least that hadn't been her plan. Before she'd gone in there, she'd thought it through from the moment she entered, to the moment she left, out of a job. She hadn't expected him to fire her, but she'd planned to go far enough that he'd be grateful when she told him it was time for them to part ways.

Instead, somehow, she was waiting for him again, headed with him once more into the black northern night.

She'd said some things she didn't mean, and she hadn't said some things she did mean, and she'd said some things she did mean but hadn't meant to say, and had forgotten a couple of the things she didn't mean but was prepared to say anyway, for effect.

It was all screwed up, always now.

When he finally got into the truck, she expected him to try to kiss her. She'd prepped herself for what she needed to say to avoid it, even though she knew she wouldn't be able to, not when he'd already had his arms around her. First they'd kiss, she thought, then she'd rephrase.

But he didn't try.

He just got in, and he thanked her for waiting, and he asked her if she was cold, or hungry, or if she wanted him to drive, and when she said no, no, and no, he smiled, and she thought he was going to touch her someway, but he didn't do that, either.

"What happened with Baker's mother?" he asked as they turned onto the dark, snow-lined highway.

"You mean once she put the kitchen knife down?"

"Really?"

"Yup. Foil on the windows, the whole deal."

"She let you in?"

"We talked through the screen," she said.

"For that long?"

There it was. There was the part he couldn't hide. He didn't trust her, either. He couldn't stop himself from doing the math, from trying to figure out if she'd stayed away longer on purpose. Well, she hadn't, at least not after she'd considered and rejected the idea of driving south on 25 and not stopping until she hit Denver.

She told him about Eileen Baker, bird-weight and house-dressed, and anxious. Her DMV records claimed she was 46, but her body was going with 60. There was the smell of stale beer on her breath and dense cigarette smoke emanating from the gloom behind her, but she seemed sober enough. She told Vic she'd been waiting for her, that she'd called three weeks ago about the pygmies in the sagebrush.

"Anything about the son?" Walt asked.

"Vague answers. She had other concerns."

"But he lives there."

"Yeah. She confirmed that."

There was a patch of silence, an opening.

She could backpedal on everything else later, but the one that required urgent attention was, _If we're doing this thing_. That had been a mistake, an adlib that had come from some source she hadn't considered and changed the trajectory of the scene.

It had to be addressed, but she didn't want to kick him in the stomach out of nowhere. She didn't want to do anything to hurt him anymore, which was why this had to stop before it got out of hand.

He started talking again, about Henry. She hadn't asked. He said it was still awkward between them. For a second she took her eyes off the road, and when they landed on his in the half-light of the instrument panel, she had the odd sensation that she was falling. She looked quickly back to the road. He kept talking, unaware.

Maybe he was lonely without Henry, and with Cady so busy. And without her. It served him right for not realizing what she'd given him all that time, for taking her for granted. But she didn't want to be like that.

When she'd first met him, he was less distracted and guarded, more present. He was sad and beaten down, but he was there. It was comfortable and familiar between them from the beginning, like they'd already knew each other from some other time and place. She was sure it was the same for him.

Until the curtain drew closed behind his eyes, she never realized how much of their communication had been silent and visual. When it began to change, she had some murky sense that he was retreating from her specifically, but it couldn't have been. There was Branch getting shot and Fales hounding him and Henry in jail, and through everything, his wife's murderer out there somewhere. It was the combination that had made him retreat to the point where being with him was like constantly needing to sneeze and never, ever getting there.

During the second hour of the trip, he told her how proud he was of Cady and about the work he was doing on the cabin and about a seven-pound salmon he caught the week before he came back to work. He said he had it in the freezer. He said she'd be surprised what he could do with a salmon, but he didn't invite her over, and he didn't mention the powwow or _this thing_. Not once.

Magic Body and Lube had stayed open late for him. She waited in the truck while he paid and they brought the Bronco out. Leaving it running, he came over, exhaling white mist. She rolled the window down.

He rested his arms on the frame and leaned in so she could feel the waves of cold rolling off the bare skin of his face. She stayed where she was, her nose too close to his.

"Thanks, Vic," he said.

"No problem."

He was looking at her, from one eye to the other, as if following something back and forth, and he leaned in a little more. She thought this is it, and her organs fluttered, but she kept her mind on the task at hand: first the kiss, then the clarification. But he stepped back, and he patted the door with his gloved hand.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"I'm off tomorrow."

"Saturday then."

She nodded and smiled. As he walked away she considered calling out to him, stopping him, but for what? Letting him down easy didn't appear to be necessary.

He was already opening the door. She opened hers.

"Walt!"

She crunched across the icy layer of packed snow, and they met in the middle, in the headlights of the two vehicles. He smiled down at her, and she felt a little dizzy, but he didn't say or do anything.

"What are you doing?" she said.

His brow crinkled. "What do you mean?"

She could kiss him. That would be counterproductive, but it was an option.

"I didn't mean some of what I said."

"Which parts?"

"This _thing_ ," she said.

"This thing."

He seemed to understand, though even she didn't know what she meant.

"We were good friends to each other," she said. "For a while."

"We were."

"So maybe that's the _thing_."

"Okay," he said. "I understand."

"You're not that bad."

"Thank you."

"And a lot of people do hate you."

He nodded. "I would have pointed that out, but I didn't want to interrupt."

"You still got elected."

"That's because I get the job done."

She concentrated hard on his face, those eyes, and the chin, his mouth. He was teasing her.

"Truce," she said, but she had no idea what she meant by that, either.

"Of course."

"All right."

"All right," he said.

"See you Saturday then."

"Saturday."

She stood there as he turned and walked back to the Bronco, and she watched him get in. He sat with the door open watching her through the windshield.

The cold was seeping in through the soles of her boots. He tilted his head to the side. That was it.

She crunched across the parking lot and around the driver's side, and he turned towards her in the seat, knees out the door. She froze, full eye-contact, then carefully, she put her hands on his knees and as she stepped forward between his legs, slid them down to his thighs.

He gasped or sighed or something airy before she pulled his head down. She kissed him with purpose and clarity. When it was over, she bit his lower lip, not hard, and he groaned, and she gasped.

He grabbed her hand before she could turn to go.

"I know," she said. "I should make up my mind."

He ran his thumb over her knuckles.

"You don't have to make up your mind, Vic. I don't need you to make up your mind."

He let go, and she walked lightheaded back to the truck.

She got in, and she closed the door, and for another moment or two, she watched him watching her. Then she put the truck in drive and turned around, and as she pulled out of the driveway, she sneezed.


	10. Not Even the Rain Chapter 10

**Though I realize we're fast approaching Labor Day, it is technically still summer for 3.5 more weeks. So the promise is not empty yet. My excuse is it's been a very, very hectic year with family stuff and work and whatnot. And travel, of course. There's always travel.**

 **I think there will be two more chapters after this, and I will get them done soon. Like I said on the other story, my goal is to have both stories finished before Season 5, and that means I have 27 days.**

* * *

Chapter 10

Then came the fires, three of them three days apart, all arson, all with the same makeshift combustibles. After each one, the City Council and the Mayor received emails claiming responsibility. Apparently there was an active jihadist cell in Absaroka County, and they were constructing incendiary devices out of plastic milk jugs and strips of bedsheet soaked in gasoline.

For ten days the Sheriff's Department was consumed.

She might have thought he was still doing whatever it was she thought he was doing that night in the parking lot. Playing hard-to-get? Taunting her? He wasn't sure what exactly, but he'd given her no reason since then to suspect anything different, if she suspected anything at all. The truth was she didn't appear to be thinking about it.

She was obsessed with the case.

Following the first fire at the Del Lago Arms and the subsequent email blast, they brought Clayton Baker in. Aside from his vague association with the Santa Fe jihadists and a tip from a basement-dwelling _World of Warcraft_ fanatic, they had nothing on him.

Baker rambled into the office in front of Vic, black hair in his eyes. He was rangy and intense and not at all the dweeb Vic had made him out to be. He didn't even seem particularly angry.

"Where were you last night, Clayton?" Walt asked him.

"It's Clay," he said with a mellow undercurrent of 'bite me.' "I was with a friend."

"This friend have a name?"

"Joey Takushi."

Vic scribbled on her pad.

He sat at the end of the couch closest to Walt's desk, looking back over his shoulder most of the time, out the window.

"Are we boring you?" Vic said.

"Most things bore me."

"You haven't asked why we brought you in," Walt said.

"I know why you brought me in."

Walt waited.

Vic slipped the notebook in her back pocket and the pencil behind her ear then made a performance of crossing her arms and cocking her hip. When this had no discernable effect on Baker, she flared her eyes at Walt, giving him a little nudge.

"Why's that?" Walt said.

"You asking me to do your job for you, Sheriff?"

Walt bristled.

"Look," Walt said, "the last thing you need is to be suspected of allegiance to the Islamic State."

Baker laughed an actual laugh, as though he truly found this not simply amusing, but funny.

"You know what I need, do you?" Baker said.

Walt stood up and walked over to the couch.

Baker was unfazed. He looked up at Walt towering over him and said, "If I'm not under arrest I really need to take a shit."

"Charming," Vic said.

"That's me."

He flipped his hair out of his eyes and floated her a smooth, broody-eyed wink.

Apparently that actually was him. He was one of those skinny, fashionably unshowered guys they plastered half-dressed on the sides of tall buildings in big cities.

Walt showed him out. When he came back into the office, Vic said, "He's not a dork."

"Nope."

"He's kind of hot in a minimal-hygiene kind of way."

Walt walked over to the window and watched Baker cross the street to the square. He needed a second.

"I guess you'd know," he said.

He didn't want to want to hurt her, but he did. She didn't take the bait, though. In fact, it was possible she hadn't even been trying to get under his skin. But she had. She always did.

"If you hear the sound of hooves, Walt, don't assume it's a zebra."

He hadn't been alone with her in days. He turned around. She pissed him off, but he still wanted to look at her.

"Maybe Baker's the zebra," he said.

"Baker's the horse."

He should have said he didn't hear any hooves, but he went with, "How 'bout I make you dinner. That salmon."

"What salmon?"

"The seven-pounder. The one in my freezer."

She seemed to be trying to remember.

He gave her way longer than he should have before he said, "Another time."

She nodded. It could have meant anything.

His error had been in not just coming out with it on the way back up to Hardin that night. Instead he'd yammered on like Ferg. Probably the mistake was going back up for the credit card in the first place. He should've just used his own credit card and had Ruby fill out the paperwork for a reimbursement. If he'd gotten in the truck right then, while there was still such promise, everything would be different now.

He was destined to keep repeating the same mistakes, to keep expecting these things to resolve themselves, which they never did.

He should have found the time and the opportunity to bring it up, if not on the trip back to Hardin then at some point soon after, despite the upheaval.

No, not _found_ , he thought. That was too passive. _Made_.

The problem was he had gone back up, and Ruby had handed him the Post-it that changed everything.

 _Sheriff Wayne Quinlan_

 _Dryer County, NE_

 _Re: Vic_

He couldn't unknow what he knew. Even before making the call, he knew.

He'd expected to kiss her when he got in the truck, or to wait until they were out of the town center, and he'd thought maybe she'd ask him to stop at her place on the way back. Maybe he'd end up staying. But with the Post-it in his head, throbbing and blinding him, he was paralyzed. So he talked. He nattered on about Henry and Cady and that stupid fish.

And after all that, she'd still wanted to kiss him because she didn't know what he knew, which broke his heart a little.

The next morning he'd called and talked to Quinlan about her and how capable she was, and the available undersheriff position in Dryer, and the low ceiling here in Absaroka, and how ready she was. After that, the fact that she'd come to him across that snowy parking lot didn't seem like it meant a whole lot.

Of course, the longer it went without him saying anything, the longer it went. Then he figured she'd bring it up, but she didn't. They were busy.

When it became clear it was no longer their case, Vic put in for two days off midweek. They were the two days he'd been dreading. She didn't give a reason, but she didn't need to. They all knew.

So she went and she came back, and she still said nothing about it.

He was tensed for everything to blow, but there was nothing, so he tried again. He was driving, and she was looking out the window at the dormant, slushy fields in the golden late-afternoon light. They'd just questioned Baker for the third time. Baker couldn't account for his whereabouts on the nights of the Del Lago Arms and Oakridge Commons fires. They hadn't been able to locate a Joey Takushi, and he wasn't helping. Still, his mother insisted he was home when Northfield Crossing went up.

They turned out of Conestoga Acres onto the highway.

"How about that salmon?"

She was tapping her hand on her thigh and biting her lip.

"Maybe he is the zebra," she said.

"I can pick you up."

"But who the hell else would be claiming allegiance to a jihadist cell?"

"McClanahan and Gill have some leads."

"They told you that?" she said.

"It's their case, Vic."

"What happened to you, Walt?" She shook her head, disgusted. "Why are you just bending over for those assholes?"

"Bending over?" He didn't like the sound of that, the implication.

"Whatever," she said.

He squeezed the steering wheel. "Never mind."

The next day, the weasel McClanahan said they needed to "keep some eyes on Baker," and what he meant by that was he wanted Walt to set up surveillance using his people.

"We have a community to serve, Agent," Walt said.

"Unfortunately, Gill and I'll be down in Cheyenne for a couple of days."

Walt hadn't exactly agreed, but once they were gone, he put Ferg on Baker during the day, and the first night Vic and Eamonn. He needed to not be disturbed by that. Then the next day Ferg, and there was still nothing. Then Eamonn was off, so it was Walt and Vic left. She said she could do it alone, but he ignored her.

They were waiting outside Anderson's Hardware in Ferg's Trans Am when, at 7:03, Baker came out. He jaywalked across the street to Durant Western Wear in a T-shirt and jeans. It was a balmy night for late winter.

"Hipster dude buys his clothes in the Wrangler store?"

She reached in her bag and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. "Here."

He took it, confused.

"Half of that's mine."

He'd brought a thermos of coffee. He poured her a cup.

She took a sip.

He handed her half the sandwich. She took a bite and shook her head.

"What?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Come on, Vic."

"It's just . . . ." She took another sip of her coffee. "What the fuck are we doing, Walt?"

He was unsure what to do with that.

Minute after minute after minute passed. All the while, the question hung there in the car between them.


	11. Not Even the Rain Chapter 11

**Warning: M-ish**

* * *

Chapter 11

The guy was an ass, but she was beginning to doubt he had anything to do with the bomb threat or the fires.

She was almost glad Walt hadn't answered her.

If she hadn't spent the past two weeks so obsessed with Clayton Baker, they probably wouldn't be here. She was the one who'd been pushing it with McClanahan and Gill, though they wouldn't have admitted to listening to her. Now she felt like an idiot.

She finished her sandwich and the rest of the coffee then handed him the cup.

"More?"

"No thanks," she said.

Keeping his eyes on the store, he screwed the cap on. From the slight dent in his brow she could tell he was ruminating. He might have misunderstood her question. She didn't plan on clarifying.

"Let me drive," she said.

He looked at her. "Why?"

"Why not?"

He shrugged and looked back to the storefront, but didn't move.

"Come on, Walt."

"He'll be out any minute."

"So?"

"Could blow our cover."

"Blow our cover?" she said.

He shrugged again.

"I'll climb in the back, you move over here, and I'll move over there." She dropped her bag on the floor in the back. "No blown cover."

"I'm not built for that," he said.

The idea of him evaluating his own body and what it could and couldn't do sent a shiver of lust through her. She pushed herself up and turned around, putting one knee on the center console.

"Vic."

Then she leaned forward and rolled shoulder-first onto the backseat. She sat up and met his eyes in the rearview.

"Tell me you're not impressed."

He was trying not to smile.

"Your turn."

"Vic."

"Yes?"

He let out a long, lip-flapping breath. He slid the seat back an inch or two. She was surprised. He unthreaded his right leg from under the steering wheel and moved it to the passenger side so he was straddling the middle.

"Dear Lord," she said.

He scoffed, and slid into the passenger seat bringing the left leg in after him. It was all very graceful, especially for a guy who'd been shot in the quad less than a year ago.

"Now I'm impressed," she said.

Squinting, he leaned towards the window. In the glare of oncoming headlights, a figure that moved like Clayton came out carrying a handled paper shopping bag.

"Get down," Walt said.

He crossed the street in front of them then walked between the hardware store and the row of shops beyond it.

"Let's go," said Walt.

She hadn't choreographed the move from the backseat into the driver's seat yet.

She got up on one knee on the center console. That wouldn't work. She couldn't enter headfirst on this one. So she brought the other knee forward and began to turn so her butt was bumping into his shoulder.

"Sorry," she said.

The only way that could work was if she sat down in his lap and went from there. That wouldn't do, not in this situation.

"Vic," he said. He was becoming impatient.

She squeezed her butt back between the seats then stood up on the floor. She leaned back and put one leg over the console and into the front seat. That was it. From there she executed the move flawlessly until the point where her right boot got stuck between the console and the seat.

Walt looked at her foot then out at the street then back at her foot.

Annoyed, he helped her pull it out and get her turned around enough that she could move it into the seat next to her. There was nothing indecent about it: just his large, warm hands on her calf and the back of her knee.

She slid the seat forward. When she had her seatbelt on she fired up the engine.

"There's only the one way out of the lot," Walt said.

She drove to the end of the block and parked on the corner with the motor rumbling. Maybe ten seconds later, Baker's 1992 Toyota Camry rolled through the stop sign at the intersection and turned right.

"Should I pull him over?" Vic said.

It was a lame attempt to lighten things up. He didn't respond.

She gave Baker a good lead before taking off in the same direction. Not three blocks later, he turned left then right into the parking lot of the Durant Athletic Club.

"Seriously?"

He parked and got out with a gym bag and a bottle of water and walked into the club.

"Maybe we're not very good at profiling," Vic said.

"What do you mean _we_?"

"Okay, _I_. _I_ suck at profiling."

"He's given us plenty of reason to be suspicious."

He was letting her off the hook, sort of.

"I have to pee," she said.

He looked at his watch. "Go now."

After all that drama, she didn't want to lose the driver's seat, so she jogged over to the Conoco station on the corner. When she got back to the car he was on her phone.

"Yup," he said. "Yup . . . okay . . . yeah . . . yup . . . okay."

She rolled her eyes at him. Her post-jog breathing was fogging up the windows.

"Yup . . . yeah . . . good . . . thanks."

He handed her the phone.

She stared at him.

"Did someone call?" she said.

"No. That was Omar."

"You called him?"

"Yeah," he said, all what's-the-big-deal.

"You know my passcode?"

He looked away from her, towards the Athletic Club.

"That's a violation, Walt. You know that?"

His eyes flicked quickly to her then back out the window.

"When did I tell you my passcode?"

"You've typed it in front of me hundreds of times, Vic."

"Not in the last year I haven't," she said.

She wasn't sure what about this upset her so much. She felt exposed, and used for some reason.

"I remembered it," he said. "I won't do it again."

I won't give you a chance to do it again, she thought, and she knew as soon as it entered her mind that that was it right there: That was the thinking she couldn't get clear of.

She knew he knew. And she knew he knew she knew he knew. Still, they didn't talk about it.

She'd like to have said she'd known at the time, or at least that she'd figured it out on the drive back from Hardin when she'd been all love-buzzed and hopeful and confused. In reality, it took her two days, and even then it was only suspicion.

Sheriff Quinlan confirmed it for her a week and a half later when he said it had been a pleasure to chat with Walt, what with his stellar reputation and all. She would have thought Quinlan was bullshitting her if he hadn't seemed so genuine in his white county-issue shirt.

She slid the phone into her bra. It was a defensive move. She did it slowly, and she made sure he was watching.

Baker saved them from themselves by coming out the door looking like an entirely different man. Clean shaven and hair slicked, he had on a new shirt, some light color, starched and collared, and maybe new jeans. The boots appeared to be the same ones he was wearing when they brought him in.

"What's up with him?" she said.

"Date maybe?"

"I'd be surprised."

"Didn't you say he was 'hot'?" he said.

"Fuck you."

"Make up your mind."

"I already have," she said, though she hadn't, and it wasn't clear what he was talking about anyway.

They tailed Baker downtown, to the single-screen Grand Theatre that never showed anything new. Clayton parked around back then strode out, typing on his phone with his thumbs. He put the phone in his pocket and stood on the corner.

A girl emerged from the shadows up the street on the other side, and he crossed to meet her. She was small, wearing a mini-skirt and tights, but not slutty looking.

"What's this?" Vic said.

Walt straightened up. They'd parked under a streetlight, and with the girl and now Clayton walking towards them, she was suddenly very aware of that.

"Keep down," she said.

He slid down so his knees were up against the front panel. There was something oddly sexy about it.

"So maybe he's not a bomber, but he's a fucking pedophile."

"A pedophile's victims are pre-pubescent."

"Perv then. Whatever."

"I know that girl," he said. "She's an adult."

"That little doll is an adult?"

"Her name's Josephine. She works in the office at the high school."

"Josephine?" Vic squinted through the windshield. "Joey?"

"Her last name's Bellamy."

"As in Reverend Ben Have-You-Accepted-Jesus-Christ-As-Your-Lord-and-Savior Bellamy?"

"That's the one," he said.

"Poor girl."

"He's all right."

"A racist, homophobic fat fuck? Yeah, he's cool."

"But fat-shaming is okay?"

"Where did you get an expression like 'fat-shaming'?"

"I read," he said.

The original _An Affair to Remember_ was playing. There was a newer version featuring Ralph Fiennes' ass. She thought about mentioning that, just to piss him off, but why? One way or another, resolution was coming; she didn't need to help it along.

In an act of mercy, Walt decided to walk to the station, giving them both a forty-minute break. If anything happened in the meantime, she'd call him there. When he came back, he gave her a bottle of water and asked extra politely if he could use her phone. She removed it from her bra and handed it to him without wiping the condensation off the screen. For ten more minutes of freedom from their charade, she was happy to let him have it.

He called Cady. On this end the conversation was identical to the one he'd had with Omar.

In the middle of the call, moviegoers began streaming out onto the sidewalk. She poked him in the arm. He cut the call short.

Pointing with the phone, he said, "There they are."

Clayton and Josephine walked side by side without touching at all, except when they crossed the street and he guided her with his hand on the small of her back.

"Dude's a gentleman."

"He just needed some motivation."

"The girl's Asian, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "Her mother. Grace."

"And Takushi's a Japanese name."

"It is, but Grace's name was Sakahara before she married Bellamy."

"Is Bellamy Josephine's biological?"

"Far as I know."

Clayton walked her about a block up the street to the flower shop, which was closed at this time of night, then they parted ways, still without any physical contact.

"Hm. Maybe they got it out of the way in the theater," she said.

"Or maybe they're taking it slow."

"Ah, yes. Old fashioned family values."

He shrugged. It felt like criticism.

Finally, Baker led them out to Conestoga Acres. Once he was inside the trailer, they parked about a hundred yards up the road, in front of an empty lot, under the cover of an overhanging tree where they could still see the white Camry in the dark driveway.

They didn't even pretend to have anything to say this time. He resumed rumination while she drifted off. She awoke when he shook her arm.

It took a long, grinding moment to orient herself and make sense of what she was seeing. Clayton was standing out in the street still wearing the outfit from earlier.

"What's up with him?"

"Another date maybe."

"At midnight?"

He paced in circles for a few minutes, then something caught his attention, and he ran up the road.

"Where's he going?"

"I don't know," Walt said. "I can't see him."

"I can see his legs."

Just then another set of legs entered the frame, and they both began walking back towards the Baker trailer.

"It's her."

Clayton had his arm around her waist now, holding her close. As soon as they reached the darkness of the driveway, they began kissing. His hands were everywhere. She unbuckled his belt.

"Holy shit. Wholesome values my ass."

Walt shifted in his seat.

In no time, Josephine had Clayton out of his pants. At this distance in the low light, the specifics weren't visible, but in general terms the sequence of events was clear. He unbuttoned her blouse, underneath her cardigan and slipped his hand inside while the other hand squeezed her butt.

He lifted her onto the trunk of the car.

"Oh, no," Vic said. "No."

She felt around for the keys on the floor, and fumbled them up towards the ignition. Walt grabbed her hand.

"We can't go now."

"Sure we can."

"He'll see us."

"He's busy, Walt."

"The only way out is past. We have to wait."

Already Josephine's legs were wrapped around Clayton's waist, and his hips were pumping slowly and deliberately.

Vic rested her head on the steering wheel. "No, no, no, no, no. Please no."

Walt cracked the window and shifted in the seat again.

She sat up, and her eyes dropped to his lap then up to his face. Her insides were wriggling.

They stared at each other for eight, ten, maybe twenty heavy heartbeats before turning back to the action.

"The sex would probably suck," she said in this airy, dazed voice she didn't recognize.

"We shouldn't talk about this now."

"You probably have a really small penis."

He repositioned himself in the passenger seat, again. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands.

After a while he said, "You already know I don't."

"Do I?" she said. "It must not have made too much of an impression."

"You looked."

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the intensity of his state was increasing. She guessed there wasn't much he could do about it now. If he tried to hide it, he'd only draw more attention.

The lovers' rhythm was accelerating. They both tried not to notice, but it was hard to miss.

"So that show in the motel was for me?" she said. She might have sounded flattered.

He shifted in his seat again. She glanced at his lap again.

She squirmed.

"Maybe we should," he said, whispering now. "But then what?"

"Then what, what?"

Clayton and his girl were nearing the end.

They watched the grand finale: frantic bucking and breathing so labored it was visible from this distance, his fingers digging into her ass, hers gripping the back of his shirt. Then the action ceased.

Eventually, Clayton eased Josephine off the car. He hugged her for a long time, kissed her neck, and said things to her that made her smile as though she was about to cry. He walked her back up the street, holding her hand. A few minutes later he returned and went back inside.

A hundred yards up the road they stared into each other's dark faces.

She looked down at his lap. She didn't try to hide it.

When she looked back up at him, he tilted his head. She nodded, and his hand slid slowly up his thigh to his belt.

Outside it was dark, and still, and quiet.

She removed her boots and slid her jeans off while he unbuttoned his. He lifted himself up and pushed them down. She moved on top of him, straddling his lap, his thighs hot between hers.

Their mouths melded, hot and soft as she lowered herself onto him, her breath catching in her throat. She pulled the two sides of his shirt apart, unsnapping it all the way down, and she pulled her own shirt and undershirt over her head and threw them into the backseat. She leaned into him, skin on skin. His breath was hot and damp in her ear.

Together, they began to move.

"Tell me," he whispered.

He looked in her eyes.

"You tell me," she said.

"I know. About Nebraska."

He pulled her closer.

"Oh, God," she breathed.

The heat was building.

"There's a second interview," she whispered into his neck.

He turned his face to her and kissed her.

"I didn't know that part," he said.

She moaned. His fingers dug into her ass.

"Tell me something I don't know," she said.

He groaned. She was touching is face.

"I love you, Vic."


	12. Not Even the Rain Chapter 12

**Just one more after this. It was supposed to be all one chapter, but the other half isn't written yet, and I need to make progress. Only 20 days to get it all done. The trailer has put the pressure on. I'll get the other one done by Monday afternoon. Then I'll return to "Here, After" for those of you following that one.**

 **A little M-ey. Not very. And some extra F-bombs for your reading enjoyment.**

* * *

Chapter 12

It was the most unprofessional thing he'd ever done, and there was definitely competition for that particular distinction.

Though he probably should have been ashamed of himself, at the moment all that mattered was that she was here in his arms. She was still on his lap with her head tucked under his chin, her breath fluttering his chest hair.

He didn't want it to end, but they did have a job to do, and the temperature was dropping. A light breeze had picked up and it was slipping through the crack in the window. He felt it on his bare skin, especially in the damp places.

Vic nestled her face into his neck.

"What are we doing, Walt?" she whispered.

He picked her head up so he could see her face in the blue-white glow of the rising moon.

"What we should have done a long time ago," he said.

"It's just . . . ."

She was intense, looking in his eyes, back and forth as though trying to find the right spot for saying whatever it was she wanted to say.

"It's just what, Vic?"

"I don't know. Just wow, I guess."

He knew better than to push, but he wanted her to say something clearer than that. It was ridiculous, he realized, but he wanted to know what this meant.

She leaned forward and kissed him even more the way he'd never been kissed before than the past few times, and already those were so different. Her crotch was making contact with his again, and there was a stirring. He was way too old to be ready so soon, but apparently his body didn't know that.

Her eyes searched for that place in his, and he was sure she was about to come out with something concrete and reassuring when she said, "You should come home with me. When we're done here," which was almost as good.

"I'd like that," he said.

"What time is it?"

He'd taken his watch off so as not to scratch her with it, or pull her hair, so she leaned over to the passenger seat floor and grabbed her phone. With remarkable ab strength she righted herself on his lap. In the process, she ground against him. He pulled her hips in closer.

"Two-thirty," she said, concentrating on the screen, but moving against him, too. "We missed a call."

"Really?" He ran his hand up her thigh, his thumb making light contact at the junction. She flinched and grinned.

With one hand she held the phone to her ear and with the other she began to stroke him. She raised her eyebrows, made a show of being impressed.

He was just about to take over, just about to lift her and guide himself in when she said, "Fuck."

At first he thought it was an expression of pleasure, but the hand on him let go and she moved back, away from his thumb.

"Ferg," she said, touching the screen, unnatural light in her face. "Listen."

The message played on speaker:

" _Vic_." Ferg sounded out of breath. " _There's another one. Fire department's on its way. I'm on my own here. I'm heading over. Come as quick as possible._ " There was audible movement and shuffling before he added, " _Horizon World. See you over there._ "

"Horizon World?" Walt said.

"Fuck," she said again.

She reached into the backseat for her shirt, so her breasts were right in his face.

He cupped one. He couldn't help it, but at same time, he was serious. "When did the call come in?"

She sat back on his thighs and pulled the undershirt on. She started to unbutton the uniform shirt. "Twelve forty-five."

The fingers that had just been on her skin went to his brow and pressed.

"Yup," she said.

She put the shirt on, open down the front, then managed to crawl across to the driver's seat and sit down. Immediately she started pulling her jeans on.

"An hour and forty-five minutes ago," she said, as if she didn't think he could identify the exact problem with the situation without further elaboration.

He pulled his underwear up and then his jeans, and he buckled his belt.

"He didn't say anything about injuries."

"An hour and forty-five minutes, Walt," she said in a tone that sounded almost like she was blaming him.

She started the engine, the rumble of it disrupting the perfect quiet of the night. Until they were out on the highway, she went easy on the gas. Then she gunned it.

"We should call," Walt said.

"And say what?" She was obviously panicking. "Sorry we're so late, Ferg. We were fucking in your car and must not have heard the phone."

"It didn't ring," he said. "We wouldn't have missed it."

"Fuck."

"That happens on these things. They don't ring sometimes."

"You're the expert I guess," she said.

She didn't have to be like that. She didn't need to attach this to them, like one was the direct result of the other. It wasn't. And even if it was, what did it say? They had a right to some happiness after everything, didn't they?

The ten minutes over there felt like an hour, and the two hours there felt like ten minutes.

Ferg, the fire chief Claude Benson, and a female firefighter were huddled at the front of the big engine. There were no flames. The remaining firefighters were spraying the smoldering wreckage of one of the buildings in the complex. Its roof had caved in.

When they got out of the car, Ferg called over to them, "I left that message two hours ago."

The smoky air smelled oddly of barbecue and creosote.

"Didn't come through," Walt said. "We just got it."

He expected them to be suspicious or accusatory, but they weren't. They just looked tired.

Claude ran through the story as they all walked around the burned building.

"Everyone made it out okay, though?" Walt asked.

"Most of the residents are back in bed," Claude said. His voice was unusually high for a man, but it fit with his mustache. "We sent three to the hospital for observation. Smoke inhalation."

"What about the ones from this block?"

"That's the dining area and the rec room. No one's in there after about 10:00 PM."

"Thank God," Vic said. "Who would do this to an assisted living facility?"

"Same M.O.," Claude said. "Same guy we assume."

"It's not Clayton Baker," Walt said.

"You're sure about that?" Ferg said.

The whole way over Walt had done the math. It had been after 12:30 when Clayton had gone back into the trailer. This fire had to have been started at least half an hour before that, probably longer.

"It wasn't him," Vic said.

By the time they were finished, it was close to five. They all needed to get some sleep. Ruby and Eamonn would both be in at 8:00, and McClanahan and Gill would be back mid-morning. They could continue this then.

Ferg handed Vic the keys to the truck.

"Give me a second," Vic said. "I just need to clean out your car."

"Why?" Ferg said. "What'd you guys do in there?"

They both stared at him.

"Nothing," Vic said at the same time and in the same defensive tone that Walt said, "Regular stakeout."

Ferg was staring at them now.

"Nothing," Walt tried again, while Vic said, "What do you think?"

Ferg held his hands up, surrendering. "I was teasing, guys."

Walt shifted his weight. Vic went over to the car to gather their things, and wipe down the passenger seat, he hoped.

"I can drop you at the station," Ferg said. "Vic has a long drive."

Walt scratched his head. "I . . . uh."

Vic slammed the door and walked back over to them. She handed Walt his thermos, and she smiled almost shyly up at him.

"We'll see you in a few hours, Vic," Ferg said, and he started walking towards his car.

Walt shrugged. Vic nodded.

"Sorry about that back there," she said.

"It's okay."

"Next time."

"Yeah," he said. "Next time.


	13. Not Even the Rain Chapter 13

**#%* &! Still not done. But it's getting there. I apologize for the false alarm. **

**Thanks for the reviews and PMs and overall encouragement.**

 **Soon. Very, very soon.**

* * *

Chapter 13

She woke alone in her bed to gray morning, two hours later than she had planned. She checked her phone. There were no messages.

She wasn't worried, at least not about running late. Over the past couple of months, she'd moved away from the idea that the Absaroka County Sheriff's Department couldn't function without her. It could, and at some point it would have to.

Her sleep had been deep and vacant, and free of Walt, but now he was back in her head.

Before he shut her down in the alley that day, she'd thought about him all the time, in all kinds of painful, lustful detail. And it had started again after their night up in Hardin, though by then the fantasies were more realistic. Now the images and the feelings weren't just realistic, they were actually real.

There had always been that heat between them, teeming with tense energy. She was pretty sure he'd felt it, too. In fact, there was a good chance it was at the root of a lot of the problems they'd had with each other. But the reality, it turned out, was more than that: She hadn't imagined how gentle he could be, and how present. And how good with his hands.

Still, here they were again, him probably at the station, ragged and red-eyed, barking out orders, and her thirty-five miles away, lingering on the fence.

It would have been different if he'd been with her now. Maybe she wouldn't have been any closer to knowing where to go from here, but at least she wouldn't have been thinking about it. She'd have been wrapped up in him—his body, and his mouth, and his voice, and the way he smelled. On some level, she felt ripped off.

She took a shower and got dressed then called the station. Ferg answered.

"So what's the deal?" she said.

Voice low, Ferg said, "The control freaks are back."

She sighed.

"And Walt's got Ben Bellamy in his office for some reason."

"He didn't tell you the reason?"

"He's in one of his moods," Ferg said.

"Really?"

That surprised her, considering.

"He barely slept, Vic. Ruby says he got in at 8:30 and had her make a bunch of phone calls. And he took the personnel schedule."

"The schedule?"

"Weird, right?"

"I'd say. Under the circumstances."

This, of course, was a lie. Under the circumstances, the ones that had him unable to trust her or to express his concerns directly, it made complete sense.

"So what's the deal with Bellamy?" Ferg said.

"Joey Takushi is Josephine Bellamy."

"No joke?"

"None," she said. "We're not sure where she got the last name Takushi, but apparently that's what she goes by, at least with friends."

"I know where she got it. Her half-brother was in my class. Dan Takushi."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I didn't make the connection," he said.

"How many Takushis do you know?"

"Total?"

"Yeah."

"Two."

She clenched her teeth, took a breath, and managed to keep her mouth shut.

Voices mumbled in the background.

"Are the asshats talking to you?"

"No," Ferg said. "Ruby. So why Bellamy?"

"Joey's dating Clayton. We assume Bellamy has an opinion about that."

"She's like twenty, isn't she?"

"He tries to intimidate sixty-year-olds."

"Good point," Ferg said.

"What about Douche and Gill?"

"They're getting a warrant for Scott Hallywall."

"World of Basement guy?" she said.

"Yeah."

"We should've picked him up weeks ago."

"That's what the Sheriff said. Oh, and he wants you to visit Josephine before you come in."

"Josephine?" she said.

"Yeah."

"He told you that?"

"Yeah. He told me to tell you."

"He couldn't have told me himself?" she said.

"I don't know, Vic. What difference does it make?"

"Just kind of weird."

"Is it?" he said.

"Let me talk to him now then."

"He told me not to interrupt."

"Tell him it's me," she said.

"Like that'll make a difference."

"Ferg." She kept her voice even. "Just tell him."

He put her on hold so she couldn't hear his timid footsteps cross the main office to Walt's door, or his self-conscious knock, or his meek, "It's Vic, Sheriff. She wants to talk to you," or Walt's boots scuff annoyed across the floor, or the hinge squeak, or Walt's, "Is it an emergency?" or Ferg's, "Not exactly," or Walt's growly, "Then not now," or the door closing too hard, but not quite slamming on account of the company.

Ferg picked up the phone again.

"Vic?"

"Yeah."

"He said he'd talk to you when you get in. Or if it's important, you can call back in forty-five minutes."

She felt cold.

"What a dick," she said.

"Same dick he's always been."

She was slipping to the side of the fence she'd spent most of the past eight months on.

Durant High School was in the middle of fourth period when she entered the main office. An acne-faced girl with braces and neck gear who'd probably be a hottie in ten years greeted Vic at the counter and had her sign in. Then the girl led her down a yellow hall to a fish-bowl office at the end.

There was Josephine, typing away at her computer, dressed impeccably in a miniature blue Chanel-style suit. There was zero indication of her nocturnal activities. Her hair was up in a bun, and she wore black, thick-framed glasses. She was clearly overqualified for the position.

The student knocked on the window and Josephine looked up. Alarm swelled in her eyes, then receded.

"Ms. Takushi," the girl said with a lisp. "This is Deputy Moretti."

"Thanks, Kayla," Josephine said, standing. Then to Vic she said, "Come on in."

Vic sat in the only other chair in the room. Josephine swiveled to face her. She sat tall, head high, hands clasped loosely in her lap.

"What can I do for you, Deputy?" Josephine said, as though she'd practiced.

"We're just trying to get to the bottom of some of the apparent terrorist activity in the area," Vic said, her eyes scanning the bulletin board above Josephine's desk. There were no pictures.

"Terrorist activity?"

"In light of your relationship with Clayton Baker, we figured you might be able to help us out."

Josephine removed her glasses. She seemed to be breathing harder, but her posture didn't change.

"Relationship?" she said.

"You wouldn't call it that?"

"We're acquaintances."

"Kids these days," Vic said. "In my time there were other words for what you two do."

Josephine stood up, smoothed her skirt, and crossed the room to the door, which she closed daintily. Then she closed the blinds and she sat back down.

"Clay isn't a terrorist," she said. "It was my idea."

"What was your idea?" Vic said.

"The bomb threat."

From there, Josephine spilled.

Their relationship was secret because of her father and Clay's mother. For Bellamy it was sexism and classism disguised as religious devotion; for Eileen Baker, it was the pigmies in the brush and the unfortunate coincidence that Josephine was unusually small. They needed to get away, so they'd applied to the University of Texas together, and they'd both gotten in.

Clay had just returned from Austin. He'd been looking into married student housing.

"Married?"

Josephine nodded.

"Wow."

"He'd been gone a week. We wanted to see each other. It was a stupid thing to suggest."

"What about High Plains Jihadi?"

"The website?" She started to laugh, then caught herself. "He's majoring in journalism. He wants to be an investigative reporter. He's writing a piece on homegrown terrorists for _The Call_."

"I suppose he can prove that," Vic said scribbling on her notepad.

"He cashed the check. An advance. We used it to make the down payment on the housing."

"What can you tell me about Scott Hallywall?"

Josephine rolled her eyes. "We were in youth group together."

"And he had a thing about you."

"Basically. Ben said I led him on."

"You call your father Ben?"

Josephine's phone whistled. She took it out of the top drawer.

"It's Clay," she said. "He's here with the Sheriff."

Vic's stomach dropped.

"He wants me to come out."

The Bronco was parked at the far end of the lot under low gray sky. Walt was leaning against the driver's side door with his head bowed while Clay walked towards them.

Josephine ran to him and hugged him like she hadn't screwed his brains out twelve hours earlier.

"Hey," Vic said when she reached Walt, the couple lagging behind.

It took him a second, but he looked up. He had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.

"McClanahan and Gill served a Federal warrant on Hallywall."

"I heard."

"That's it then, I guess. These two need to be questioned."

"They're married," she said.

"I know."

"What about Bellamy?"

"He'll get over it."

She crossed her arms and looked down at the asphalt.

"You're off the next two days," he said.

"Yup."

"You didn't tell me that."

The veins in her temples pulsed. She kicked at a tiny rock and looked up at him again.

"I'm pretty sure I did. In fact, I remember exactly when I told you."

"You didn't say when."

"You didn't ask, Walt."

He nodded.

"Well, good luck," he said.

"Seriously? That's what you're going with?"

He shrugged.

She would have said _fuck you_ if Josephine and Clay hadn't been approaching.

She lowered her voice. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've got something to say. Say it."

He stood up straight. He took his hat off and looked inside, then he put it back on.

"Okay," she said.

She thanked Josephine, and she reminded Clay to tone down the defensiveness, and she wished them both luck.

Then she looked up at Walt, and she waited.

He pulled the keys out of his pocket and opened the door. He held the seat back for Clay to get in, and still, he said nothing.

"Okay then," she said.

She walked over to the truck under low gray sky, and she got in, and she drove away.


	14. Not Even the Rain Chapter 14

**Here it is, finally! I don't love it, but it's done, and I love that.**

 **You'll note that the resolution of the arson case subplot is very vague. I do have the whole story of that written out, but it was boring me, and seriously, who cares anyway, right? We just want to know what happened with Walt and Vic.**

 **Thank you again for all the reviews and PMs and reads! Seven days. ; )**

* * *

Chapter 14

The grayness had risen and expanded. Just before noon, the first swollen drops of late-winter rain splatted against his office window. Two hours later, it was coming down in sheets.

Vic still wasn't back.

He grabbed his hat and left through the side door. As soon as he stepped out onto the wet sidewalk, he saw the truck parked on the other side of the street. His chest tightened.

He crossed the road, cool rain pelting his face, and walked around the vehicle. There was nothing inside—no travel mug in the cup holder, no bag on the passenger side floor, not even one of those hairbands around the gear selector. He felt queasy.

When he crossed back to the station, Clay was leaning against the brick wall under the overhang smoking a cigarette. It was the last thing he felt like dealing with.

"Dude," Clay heckled, "ever heard of an umbrella?"

Walt stopped under the overhang, his shirt soaked and sticking to his chest. He imagined that smug grin had been punched off Baker's face a time or two.

"Don't tell Joey I'm smoking," Clay said.

"I won't have to," Walt said. "She'll smell it."

Exhaling a long white cloud, Clay dropped the cigarette and stepped on it with the toe of his black boot. Walt stared down at the butt until Clay got the message. He bent with exaggerated effort, picked it up, and strolled over to the trashcan. When he returned to the shelter of the building, he was about as wet as Walt was.

"You know, son," Walt said, his hand on the doorknob, "lies don't make for a solid foundation."

Clay flipped his damp, stringy hair out if his eyes. "I'm not sure you're the guy to take relationship advice from."

"Excuse me?"

"Permission to speak freely?"

"This isn't the military, Clay."

"You fucked up, man."

"Excuse me?"

"She doesn't want you to wish her luck, she wants you to ask her not to go."

Walt squinted at Clay's face. He didn't recall anyone being close enough in the parking lot to have heard what he said to Vic.

He cleared his throat. "I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"Sure you are. That's her truck. She never came back in. And you're drenched."

It wouldn't even take a closed fist, Walt thought.

"That's what you're doing to her," Clay said, more serious all of a sudden, less baiting. "It's messed up, man."

Walt started to pull the door open then let it go.

Without looking at Clay, he said, "She's focused on her career. I said I wouldn't get in the way."

"Whatever."

He thought about slamming the kid's skinny ass up against the wall, but it would only be for show at this point.

"She wants you to get in the way."

"Well, thanks for the tip," Walt said. He opened the door and held it with his foot as he turned to face Clay. "Now here's one for you: Think long and hard about who you're willing to take the fall for."

"Qué what?" Clay said.

"Your wife's an intelligent woman. Not really the type to call in a bomb threat so she can spend some quality time with her boyfriend."

It was a semi-wild guess.

"Husband," Clay said, the attitude back and the smile gone.

"Right," Walt said. "Husband."

Upstairs on the landing, Gill was sitting on the bench writing on a legal pad.

"Got what you needed on Hallywall?" Walt asked him.

Gill stood, capping his pen then scratching his head with it. His hair was the color of fire. He looked around then leaned in, and said, voice low, "I don't think it's Hallywall."

"Neither do I."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Not our case," Walt said.

Gill nodded as though he accepted this as a reasonable answer.

"I guess you'll take a look at Bellamy's phone records," Walt added.

Gill nodded. "But what about these two?"

"Accessories at most."

"To the fires?"

"I'd be surprised," Walt said. "But Josephine knows more than Baker does."

"Yeah," Gill said. "I got that."

Back in his office, Walt took off his hat. Only his jeans below the knees were dry. He was already getting a chill.

He picked up the phone then put it down. He shifted his weight and rubbed his stubbly chin then picked it up again. He dialed Vic's number, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it vibrating in his eardrums.

It rang four times before going to voicemail. He put the phone down and scrunched his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He walked to the door and stood there for a moment. McClanahan was sitting at Vic's desk rubbing his forehead with his fingertips, and Scott Hallywall was still lying curled-up on the cot in the cell, facing the wall, his breathing deep and loud. The door to the reading room was closed; he guessed that's where Josephine was.

"Ruby?" Walt said as quietly as he could and still be heard.

McClanahan startled and turned to glance vacant-eyed at Walt, then went back to his wallowing. Ruby looked up from whatever she was typing on the computer.

"Got a minute?"

Once she was inside, he closed the door. She didn't speak, just looked up at him, braced for whatever strange, unreasonable request he was about to make.

"I need to take a couple of days."

"Are you feeling all right?" she said, touching his arm.

"I'm fine," he said. "Could you just . . . uh."

"I'll get a third deputy," Ruby said. "Mutt and Jeff can manage the case."

"Well, it is theirs."

"Far as I'm concerned, they can't wrap it up soon enough."

"They'll be finished in a few days," Walt said.

"Don't worry about us, Walter. We can manage."

She smiled and started to go.

"Wait . . . Ruby . . . uh." He lowered his voice even more. "Could you give me Vic's address?"

Surprise flashed across her features then disappeared.

"Sure thing," she said.

He opened the door for her and watched as she walked to her desk and leaned over it. She tapped a few keys on the computer, and wrote something on a pink Post-it. Then she came back and handed it to him.

"Thanks, Ruby," he said.

He had a dry shirt to change into, but he'd have to deal with the wet jeans. There wasn't time to go home. Wherever she was, she was getting further and further away by the second.

Sunset was two hours off, but the sky was already dark. It was still raining steadily.

Traffic out on the highway was reacting to the storm, so the drive took almost twice as long as usual, and it was another ten minutes from the highway through the rain-battered town to her apartment complex. It was pink Deco, set back from the road with a huge dead lawn in front. The place was in dire need of renovation.

Hers was #8, upstairs. He waited in the truck for a time, watching for light or movement behind the curtains in the front picture window. There was nothing.

The rain was finally slackening.

He got out and walked up the stairs, nervous. It wasn't that excited-nervous he felt when he thought about kissing her, or when she'd moved onto his lap in the car last night, but more a terrified-nervous, like something bad could come of this, something life threatening, something a person might not want to survive even if he could.

He opened the screen and knocked on the door. There was a dry, menacing lump in his throat.

He knocked again. Then he closed the screen door and leaned back against the railing. After a few minutes, he stepped forward, opened the screen, and knocked again.

Number 7's door opened.

"Can I help you with something?" a woman's reedy voice said.

She spoke to him from behind the screen, but he could see a thick shock of white hair, bright against the darkness.

"Afternoon," he said. "Just looking for your neighbor."

"She's not home," the woman said. "And you are?"

"Walt Longmire."

"The Sheriff?"

"That's right."

"Absaroka County?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"You her boss?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"And she didn't tell you where she was going?"

He removed his hat. He should have done it sooner.

"She told me," he said. "I was just hoping to catch her before she left."

"Well, you're about two hours too late."

He nodded again.

"Want me to tell her you came by?" she asked.

"That's all right. I can call."

"Could've called now, couldn't you?" the woman said.

Putting his hat back on, he said, "I was in the area. Figured I'd give it a shot."

After that, he didn't think. He just drove.

When he hit Durant and merged onto 25 south, it was even darker—storm-dark combined with evening-dark.

He kept going.

At Douglas, a little after 6:00 PM, he stopped for gas and dinner. He hadn't eaten all day. Then he started off again, this time on the two lane highway that took him into the northwest corner of Nebraska.

It was no longer raining.

Mile after mile of black, shimmering pavement and the lights of small towns in the distance had him thinking over and over about what he'd done to her, what he kept doing to her, and why it was so hard to stop doing it.

He was the guy who didn't think Branch was good enough for his daughter. Branch, with his rural conservatism and pronounced chivalry, hadn't been good enough. If he'd ever known Branch to pull half the crap on Cady that he'd pulled on Vic, he would have been out for blood.

It wasn't that he didn't know how to show a woman respect. He'd done it with Martha, at least in the beginning and then in the end, and he'd done it with the doctor. For her, he'd put himself out there.

With Vic, though, he was forever on the threshold, opening up to her for only a moment then closing off tight again. It was riskier with her. There was so much more to lose.

Last night he'd told her he loved her, and he'd foolishly expected that to be enough to stop, or at least delay, her forward momentum. In reality, he hadn't offered her anything, not even dinner. He wouldn't have thought that was anywhere near enough for Cady.

He was a hypocrite.

The county seat was a town called Manilla. When he pulled onto the main drag it was close to 9:00, and most of the businesses were dark. The place appeared to be half the size of Durant, but the town center was deceptive. He'd looked it up. The county had twice the residents of Absaroka, and an undersheriff position to prove it.

He stopped at the first motel he came to: Trout Lodge. It wasn't as much a lodge as a strip motel that probably sold more rooms by the hour than the night. He went to the front desk and flashed his badge, said he was looking for a missing person. That got the woman's attention. Vic wasn't registered there.

She wasn't registered at the Jailhouse Motel and Steakhouse, or at Clare's Inn on the River, either. And there wasn't a river.

The last one on Main Street was the Meadowlark Hotel. The lot was almost full. He parked in a dark corner and went inside.

There was a long line for the one frazzled and wiry attendant at the counter.

Fifteen minutes later, he made it to the front. He had his badge in his pocket, and when he pulled it out, the attendant looked a little panicked. His pupils were dilated, and he had beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip.

"I'm looking for someone," Walt said. "Victoria Moretti. Can you tell me if she's registered here?"

The guy dabbed his upper lip with a handkerchief. "I'm not supposed to do that," he said, as though this had come up before.

"Can I speak to your manager then?"

"I am the manager."

"I don't need a room number. A yes or no will do."

The guy dabbed his lip again, but didn't respond, possibly because he had lost track of the conversation.

In the old days there would have been a registration book open on the counter. He'd only have to glance at it to recognize her handwriting.

"You have any rooms available?" Walt asked, somewhat slower than his normal rate of speech.

"One left."

Walt gave him his driver's license and credit card. He waited. It was slow going.

"Is there a convention in town or something?" Walt asked.

The guy stopped his single-finger typing and looked up. Walt regretted asking.

"Not that I know of."

Ten minutes more and Walt had a keycard and a room number. As he was walking away, the guy said, "Yes."

Walt stopped. "Yes what? Convention in town?"

"No," the guy said.

It was an unusually painful game of charades. Walt didn't ask any more questions.

Attached to the far end of the motel was a bar called Tanya's. The air was balmy and close as he walked along the wet asphalt of the parking lot.

The second he stepped inside, he saw her.

She was at the far end of the bar talking to a guy in a sports coat. Her hair was down, and she was smiling. His stomach clenched.

Before he had time to choose a course of action, she looked up, and the smile fell from her face.

She said something to the guy like, "Excuse me," or maybe even, "What the fuck?" then got up and came over to him, quickly enough that his instinct was to protect himself, take cover. But he just stood there and waited for whatever it was that was coming.

"What are you doing here?" she said, her volume low but her eyes wild.

"I needed to talk to you."

"You couldn't have just called me, like a normal person? Or better yet, talked to me when I was standing right fucking there?"

She was angry. She had reason to be.

"I should have, Vic."

She shook her head. "Well, I'm kind of busy now."

"Oh," he said, glancing at the guy in the sports coat, who was watching them. "You're on a—"

"Seriously, Walt?" She looked at the guy, too, but she didn't wave or anything. "No. I'm here for an interview. Remember?"

"I wanted to say I'm sorry."

"You've said that before."

"It's a new apology. For this morning."

"Yeah, well. That's your thing, right?"

He scratched his head. "I don't want it to be, Vic. It doesn't have to be."

"This could've waited."

"No," he said. "It couldn't."

She crossed her arms over her chest then uncrossed them.

"Five minutes," he said. "I'll buy you a beer."

"I have a beer." She looked up at him for a long time before she said, "Fine."

She went over and talked to the guy for a minute or two, then she came back with her beer, and they sat at a booth close to the entrance. He'd bought her a beer anyway, so now they had three.

She took a sip of hers then said, "What? Speak. What's so fucking important?"

He scratched at the label on his bottle. When he noticed her watching him do it, he stopped, and he said, "I never offer you anything."

"You give me coffee all the time," she said. "And lately, soup."

"That's not what I mean."

She took another sip of her beer. He took a sip of his.

"I've been wanting you to say you'll stay, and you never do because I've never given you reason to."

She was listening now.

"That's not because there aren't reasons."

"You told me you wanted me to stay once before. That wasn't such a great gift."

"Exactly," he said. "Which is why I never wanted to say it again. But I should've said something."

"You shouldn't say something you don't mean or feel," she said, and there was a miniscule crack in her voice.

"I do mean it, Vic. I do feel it."

He took her hand. She tried to pull back, but there wasn't much energy behind it, and he managed to hold on. She didn't try again.

"I want you to stay," he said. "I want you to want to stay. With me. Permanently."

She seemed to have stopped breathing, and blinking.

"However you want it to be. We could talk, but whatever you're comfortable with. We could get a dog, or even a—"

He cleared his throat and squeezed her hand.

"A family. We could be a family, whatever that means. Whatever you want that to mean. And we can work on the undersheriff thing. I'll bring it up to the City Council. I think we have a case for it. The county's population has increased since the last review."

"And the murder rate's out of control," she said.

He smiled.

"I'm sorry I keep pulling away," he said.

"We both keep pulling away, Walt."

"We could work on that. If you want."

"I have an interview at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. I rented a car and drove all the way out here."

"I understand," he said.

"I'm not saying anything. Just they're expecting me now."

"I know."

They finished their beers, and he told her his theory on the bomb threat and Josephine and Hallywall and Belamy and the fires. She said she'd called Gill earlier in the afternoon and told him to get phone records for Bellamy.

"I told him the same thing," Walt said.

"Warped minds think alike."

He walked her to her room which was at the end of the opposite wing from his. She opened the door, and she took his hand and pulled him inside.

"Vic," he said.

She kissed him before he could say anything else.

"Let's do this right," she breathed in his ear.

"Tomorrow," he said. "You're here, Vic. I could have said something a lot sooner. You're here and you should finish what you came for."

He was afraid she'd be hurt, but she stood up on her toes and kissed him again.

"Despite your objectionable behavior, Walt, you're a good man."

In his own room, he took a hot shower and got into one of the two queen beds. He had to lie diagonally so his feet wouldn't hang off the end.

If he hadn't been so exhausted, the fear of the next twelve hours would have been unbearable. As it turned out, he fell into a deep sleep almost immediately. He awoke, disoriented, to knocking.

When he opened the door in his boxers, sunlight streamed in, and she was standing there in a sharp black suit with a pressed white shirt under the jacket.

"Morning," she said.

"Hey."

He rubbed his eyes.

"You look like a Fed," he said. "They'll be impressed."

"They were impressed," she said, coming in and closing the door behind her.

She hugged him.

"What are you doing the rest of the day?" she said.

"I haven't made any plans."

"I got my room for another night."

He smiled.

"So maybe we could stay," she said. "In the same room."

She stripped down to her bra and underwear and got into bed with him. He lay behind her, holding her, his face against her warm neck.

She was quiet for so long he thought she'd fallen asleep. But just as he was drifting off again, she said, "Walt?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Vic."

Absently, she combed the hair of his forearms with her fingernails.

"We can talk," she said. "About all of it."

He pulled her even closer.

"I'd like that," he said.


End file.
